[Anujay Shrivastava is a law graduate (class of 2020) from Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat] It is a well-settled principle that ‘patent illegality’ is a valid ground for a court to set aside an arbitral award under section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996. Previously, I had jointly examined the position of law on ‘patent illegality’ as a ground to...
The Delhi High Court in Ultra Homes on IP Jurisdiction
[Raghav Kacker is an Advocate practicing before the High Court of Delhi and various Tribunals and Ruchi Chaudhury is a postgraduate in anthropology and currently an LLB candidate at Jindal Global Law School] A plaintiff in an infringement suit is bestowed with a generous choice of jurisdiction in addition to what the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (“CPC”) provides. Several...
Unqualified Fair & Equitable Treatment Clause: It’s Time to Revamp
[Ameya Vikram Mishra is an associate at J. Sagar Associates, New Delhi and Nikhil Pratap an advocate practising in Delhi] Recently, Cairn Energy plc filed a petition in the South District of New York to attach Air India’s assets. This action has been taken pursuant to an award by an arbitral tribunal (“Tribunal”) constituted under the Bilateral Investment Treaty between the United Kingdom and...
Replacing the Anachronistic Methods of Determining Dominance in EU Competition Law
[Aryan Garg and Bishesh Joshi are undergraduate law students at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad] With the evolving technology, there has been a rise of new dynamic digital platforms. They deviate from the traditional business models in various ways. The modern-day digital platforms are multi-sided, due to which there are network effects, and they can operate on the basis of zero-price models...
Call for Posts: The CCL, NLUO Blog
[Announcement on behalf of the CCL, NLUO Blog] The Centre for Corporate Law is an initiative of National Law University Odisha, Cuttack that strives to promote interdisciplinary research in corporate law, and related fields like insolvency laws, securities law, etc. The Centre for Corporate Law is pleased to inform you about the launch of the “CCL Blog”. The CCL Blog is a two-tier, peer-reviewed...
Digital Markets: Need for a New Approach to Merger Regulation
[Manasvin Andra is a 4th year B.A., LL.B. (Hons.) student at NALSAR University of Law School, Hyderabad] The emergence of digital markets has heralded a remarkable shift in antitrust law, with the impact of mergers on potential competitors attracting particular attention in recent years. While authorities in the United States (‘US’) and the European Union (‘EU’) have begun deliberating on...
Initiation of CIRP against a Company in Liquidation: How Early is too Early?
[Subodh Asthana and Madhur Bhatt are 3rd year B.A., LL.B. (Hons.) students at Hidayatullah National Law University, Raipur.] Section 279 of the Companies Act 2013 [“Act”] envisages that no legal proceedings shall be admitted if the winding up petition of a company has been accepted by the court or the liquidation proceedings have begun. The article seeks to clarify whether an application to...
AIF Units as ‘Securities’ and its Ripple Effect on Taxation
[Priya Maharishi and Vansh Singla are 4th B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) students at Jindal Global Law School, Sonepat] With the growth of start-ups and early-stage companies, there is a continuous need for long-term capital investments and management expertise. Pooled investment funds can fulfil this need as they have forbearance unlike other sources of capital like public funding. These pooled investment...
IBC vis-à-vis PMLA: Does Section 32A Resolve the Question of Primacy?
[Manisha Arora is a 3rd year B.A., LL.B. (Hons.) student at Damodaram Sanjivayya National Law University, Visakhapatnam] The absence of definitive jurisprudence on the interplay of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (“IBC”) and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (“PMLA”) has resulted in the uncertainty in their enforcement. While the IBC ensures the management of operations of a...
SEBI’s ‘Skin in the Game’ Directive – Investor Interest versus Employee Interest
[Aman Jha is a third-year student at National Law University, Delhi and Anurag Shah is a fourth-year student at School of Law, Christ University Bangalore] The Securities and Exchange Board of India (“SEBI”), through a circular dated April 28, 2021, has directed Asset Management Companies (“AMCs”) to compensate its key employees partly in the form of units of the mutual fund schemes managed by...
Analyzing the Fintech Implications of RBI’s Mandate for Interoperability
[Akshay Luhadia and Rohit Gupta are 3rd year B.A., LL.B. (Hons.) students at West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata] On April 7, 2021, the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (‘RBI’) announced significant changes in the policies regulating the operation of prepaid payment instruments (‘PPIs’) in India. According to the guidelines under the Payment and Settlement Systems...
“Clean Slate Theory” under the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code: An Analysis
[Aditya Saraswat is a 5th year student at National Law University, Jodhpur] One of the foremost objectives of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (the “Code”) is to ensure timely resolution and revival of corporate debtors. For this purpose, various resolution plans are invited and deliberated upon before a final plan is selected. However, what if certain liabilities are imposed by the...
CCI’s “Control” Quandary: Practice, Precedent, And Proposals
[Prateek Bhattacharya is Associate Professor, Jindal Global Law School, Associate Dean & Associate Director, Centre for Postgraduate Legal Studies at Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University] As the Competition Commission of India (CCI) completes 10 years of its merger control regime, it has begun to settle down as an ex ante regulator of mergers so as to become the effective...
Coffee Plantations under SARFAESI: A Bitter Brew
[Rahul Machaiah is a lawyer from Karnataka. He holds an LLM in Law & Development from Azim Premji University] On 29 January, 2021, a Division Bench of the Karnataka High Court held in UM Ramesh Rao v Union Bank of India that a coffee plantation is not ‘agricultural land’ under section 31(i) of the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security...
The Reliance Open Offer Penalty: ‘Unexplained’ Delays in Regulatory Action
Shikhar Aggarwal is a 3rd year B.A.LL.B. (Hons.) student at National Law University, Delhi] On 7 April 2021, the Adjudicating Officer (“AO”) of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (“SEBI”) imposed a monetary penalty of ₹25 crore jointly on 34 entities, including brothers Mukesh and Anil Ambani and other promoters of Reliance Industries Limited (“RIL”), for their failure to comply with the...
Analysing the Oppression Remedy in India: Is it “Just and Equitable”?
[Devika Bansal and Naina Bora are third-year law students at Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar] Spanning over a four-year period, the dispute in Tata Consultancy Services Limited v. Cyrus Investments Pvt. Ltd. recently came to an end with the Indian Supreme Court (“SC”) dismissing allegations of oppression and mismanagement. This SC judgement has highlighted...
Call for Papers: NLUJ Law Review
[Announcement on behalf of the NLUJ Law Review] NLUJ Law Review is the flagship journal of National Law University, Jodhpur, established with the objective of promoting academic research and fostering debate on contemporary legal issues. It is a bi-annual, double-blind student reviewed and edited journal, focusing on an inter-disciplinary approach towards legal writing. The remit of the Review is...
Indian Parties without an Indian Court: The Verdict in PASL Wind Solutions
[Abhi Udai Singh Gautam and Mustafa Rajkotwala are third-year law students at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad] The Supreme Court (‘SC’) has recently settled a fundamental question of arbitration law in PASL Wind Solutions Private Ltd v GE Power Conversion India Private Limited (‘PASL v. GE’), by determining that two Indian Parties are, in fact, capable of validly entering into a foreign...
Erstwhile Creditors and their Continued Participation in the Committee of Creditors
[Chandni Ghatak is an advocate practicing in New Delhi.] Recently, the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal, Chennai (“NCLAT”) in Mr. KN Rajakumar v. V. Nagarajanallowed the resolution professional to reconvene a meeting of the committee of creditors (“CoC”) as it stood in the year 2017 at the time of initiating CIRP against the corporate debtor. This was ordered to enable the CoC to consider...
The Evolution of Risk Management Oversight by Indian Boards
[Afra Afsharipour is Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs & Professor of Law at UC Davis School of Law and Manali Paranjpe a Research Associate at The Conference Board, India] Across the globe, the focus on effective risk management has intensified over the past two decades as major corporations have experienced risk management failures due to excessive financial risk taking...
Analyzing the Conundrum of Priority inter-se Secured Creditors during Liquidation
[Nishant Nagori and Divyani Saldi are 2nd year students at Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab] The raison-d’être of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 is to balance the interest of all the stakeholders during the insolvency as well as liquidation process. However, the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (“NCLAT”) recently in Technology Development Board v. Anil Goel provided a...
BR Foundation’s Online Certificate Course on International Dispute Settlement [May 28-May 31]
[Announcement on behalf of the BR Foundation] BR Foundation is conducting an online certificate course on the International Dispute Settlement from May 28 to May 31, 2021. About the Course This course is an annual 4-day course on “International Dispute Settlement” especially focusing on the developments and growing relevance of international dispute settlement mechanism all around the...
Applicability of Section 29A to Pre-Packaged Insolvency Resolution of MSMEs
[Tushar Kumar is an Associate at Ernst Young Global Delivery Services] Section 29A of the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC) makes certain persons ineligible to buy the assets of the insolvent corporate debtor, owing to the fact that they are either undesirable or have, due to their misconduct in the past, contributed to the present insolvency of the corporate debtor. It is pertinent to...
Balance Sheet as Valid Acknowledgement of Debts: Flawed Reasoning to a Judicious Conclusion?
[Malika Tiwari is a 4th year B.Com., LL.B. (Hons.) student at Institute of Law, Nirma University, Ahmedabad] Section 18 of the Limitation Act, 1963 (“the Act”) provides for the admission of debts owed by a debtor to its creditor by providing a written acknowledgement, duly signed by him or his authorised agent. Such an acknowledgement marks the commencement of a fresh period of limitation for the...
The Proposed Single Securities Markets Code
In the Budget 2021 speech, the Finance Minister announced a proposal “to consolidate the provisions of SEBI Act, 1992, Depositories Act, 1996, Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act, 1956 and Government Securities Act, 2007 into a rationalized single Securities Markets Code.” When implemented, this would represent a significant step in the modernization of securities regulation in India. In my...
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