ArchiveJanuary 2012

Part II – An Analysis of the Supreme Court’s judgment in Vodafone

In our first post on the Vodafone judgment, we set out the issues of law arising from the Court’s findings, and discussed two of those – the approach to tax avoidance and the meaning of controlling interest.  This post considers two other important issues – India’s approach to the corporate veil, and the scope the “extinguishment” provision under section 2(47) of the Income Tax Act, 1961...

Venture Capital Funds: Minimum Investment Norms

(The following post is contributed by Ravi Shankar Jha, a final year student at the Dr. RML National Law University, Lucknow. It points to a lacuna in SEBI’s Venture Capital Funds Regulations) Venture capital funds (VCFs) have been envisaged to provide easy capital to start-up firms. In India, VCFs are regulated by SEBI (Venture Capital Funds) Regulations, 1996. Through these regulations, SEBI...

Preferential Allotments Liberalized for Certain Institutional Investors

Over the years, SEBI has gradually tightened the regime relating to preferential allotment of shares in order to prevent possible abuse of the process and to thereby protect the interests of minority shareholders in listed companies. One of the requirements pertains to lock-in on shares of allottees. There are currently three types of lock-in applicable to persons who are allotted shares on a...

Third Week of Arguments: Constitution Bench on Bhatia International

Arguments continued this week before the Constitution Bench comprising the Chief Justice, and Justices Jain, Nijjar, Khehar and Desai. Unlike counsel before him, Dr Singhvi concentrated principally on the applicability of section 9 of the 1996 Act to arbitrations in which the seat is abroad, and it was his case that section 9 ought to apply no matter what view the court takes of the applicability...

An Analysis of the Supreme Court’s judgment in Vodafone – Part I

In our post on the judgment of the Bombay High Court, we expressed the hope that the Supreme Court would take a different view. That the Court has now done so has been welcomed as much needed respite in bad times. Even more importantly, it is heartening that the Court has taken what it is submitted is the correct view especially on the facts of Vodafone’s case. But from...

Vodafone: Key Points

The Supreme Court’s judgment today in Vodafone is of enormous importance to a number of branches of Indian law. The majority judgment has been delivered by the Chief Justice and Swatanter Kumar J. A concurring judgment delivered by K.S. Radhakrishnan J. in some respects goes even further. A copy of the judgment is available on the Supreme Court’s website. A detailed analysis of the judgment will...

Vodafone’s appeal allowed

It has been reported that Vodafone’s appeal has been allowed, the Supreme Court inter alia rejecting the Revenue’s “extinguishment” argument and holding that section 9 is not a “look-through” provision.
We will have an opportunity to discuss this judgment in detail over the coming days once a copy is available.

Second Week of Arguments: Constitution Bench on Bhatia International

Arguments continued this week before the Constitution Bench comprising the Chief Justice, and Justices Jain, Nijjar, Khehar and Desai. As we noted, counsel for the appellants in the first week concentrated principally on whether the courts of the seat of arbitration have exclusive jurisdiction to test the validity of an arbitral award even when the proper law of the contract is the law of another...

Regulating the Pay of Bankers in the Private Sector

Last week, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued compensation guidelines for implementation by private sector and foreign banks that become operational from the financial year 2012-2013. This approach is consistent with the trend that corporate governance norms in the banking sector tend to be more controlled than in other industry sectors. Apart from the fact that the pay of CEOs and wholetime...

QFI Route Operational

Following the decision of the Government of India to permit qualified foreign investors (QFIs) to invest in the Indian stock markets, SEBI and RBI yesterday issued detailed guidelines (here and here) to operationalise the investment mechanism. SEBI has introduced a number of checks and balances to prevent misuse of this route. For example, significant KYC obligations have been imposed on the...

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