[Manasi Chandriani Shah is a Solicitor (B.I.L.S)] Fintech entities, wallet providers, and non-banking financial companies have been mandated to pull the chains on all existing arrangements to facilitate or extend loans through prepaid payment instruments (“PPI”), including cards and wallets. Extending a credit line through any PPI has been prohibited by the Reserve Bank of India (“RBI”). This ban...
Utilisation of Accumulated Surplus by Section 8 Companies
[Pammy Jaiswal is a Partner and Shraddha Shivani an Executive at Vinod Kothari and Company] Section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013 provides for the formation of companies with specific objects. The profits earned by such companies necessarily get redeployed to pursue the very same objects for which the company is formed and cannot be distributed to the shareholders. There are several restraints to...
Debunking Special Situation Funds: Is India Ready for the Vultures?
[Aditya Shekhar and Abhishek Choudhary are Vth year B.A., LL.B. (Business Law Hons.) students at National Law University, Jodhpur] The need for inclusion of special situation fund [“SSF”] in the Indian financial market was felt due to India’s bad debt problem. It is evident from the recent trend and eagerness of financial institutions to sell off their non-performing assets [“NPA”], which...
Supreme Court on Pledge of Shares: Insider Trading Regulations May Require Review
[Vinita Nair is a Senior Partner at Vinod Kothari & Co.] Recently, in PTC India Financial Services Limited v. Venkateshwar Kari, the Supreme Court held that ‘beneficial ownership’ in the context of the Depositories Act should not be confused with beneficial ownership under general law as it is merely a procedural precondition to sale by the pledgee. Further, the Court found that there is no...
Supreme Court on Pledge of Shares: Takeover Regulations May Require Review
[Vinita Nair is a Senior Partner at Vinod Kothari & Co.] In PTC India Financial Services Limited v. Venkateshwar Kari, the Supreme Court of India brought out a very important distinction between the meaning of ‘beneficial owner’ under the depository legislation, and the right of the pledgee or security interest holder to cause the sale of goods pledged by pledgor in terms of the rights...
Supreme Court Clarifies Standard of Proof in PMLA Proceedings
[Raghav Bhatia is an Advocate practising at the Supreme Court of India. Hima Prajitha is an Advocate, practising before courts in Andhra Pradesh] Recently, the Supreme Court of India in J. Sekar @ Sekar Reddy v. Directorate of Enforcement, has observed that the standard of proof in proceedings under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (“PMLA”) is beyond reasonable doubt and not...
Termination of the Mandate of the Arbitrator appointed by Mutual Consent
[Megha Shaw is an Incoming Associate at S&A Law Offices and Ashish Kumar is a fourth year student at NMIMS, Bangalore] In the recent case of Swadesh Kumar Agarwal v Dinesh Kumar Agarwal, the Supreme Court of India (“SC”) has explained the scope of section 11(6) vis-à-vis section 14(1)(a) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (“Act”). Section 14(1)(a) encapsulates the termination of an...
Navigating an Alternative Route for Hostile Raiders
[Chandragupt is a 5th year B.A.,LL.B.(Hons.) student and Varnika Pasricha is a 5th year B.B.A.,LL.B.(Hons.) student, both at the Jindal Global Law School] The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulations 2011 [“SAST Regulations”] envisage two types of offers – mandatory open offers and voluntary open offers. While mandatory open offers are...
Hostile Takeover Cannot be a Defence to CCI Notification Requirements
[Mohsin Rahim is a 5th Year B.B.A. L.L.B. (Hons.) Student at Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana] On May 17, 2022, the Competition Commission of India (“CCI”) passed an order imposing a penalty of INR 1 crore on Veolia Environment S.A. under section 43A of the Competition Act 2002 (“Act”) for violating section 6(2) and section 6(2A) of the Act, as Veolia...
Tackling ESG Mislabels and Greenwashing: SEC in the BNY Mellon Case
[Salini Augusty and Nikash John are 5th-year students from the School of Law, Christ (Deemed to be University), Bengaluru] Sustainable development has progressively become a driving factor in the age of conscious investments. This ‘green factor’ is arguably exploited by corporates to misdirect investors for their gains. The environment, social, and governance, better known as the ESG, though...
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