[Eshvar Girish is a 5th year BBA LLB student at Christ University] Recently, the Union Cabinet approved a proposal to allow the listing of Indian companies overseas directly, without being listed on the domestic stock exchanges. India Inc. has perceived this approval as a much-needed move. Keeping this in mind, this post aims to analyze the implications of direct listing of Indian companies...
Stamp Duty Amendments on Securities Transactions: The Impact of Covid-19
[Bhavna Hemrajani is a 4th year student at Amity Law School Delhi (affiliated to Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University Delhi)] The Finance Act, 2019 amended the Indian Stamp Act, 1899 to insert section 9A, which deals with ‘Instruments chargeable with duty for transactions in stock exchange and depositaries’, and section 9B, which relates to instruments ‘chargeable with duty for transactions...
GST Implication on Director’s Remuneration: CBIC’s Circular
[Ashutosh Choudhary (BA.LLB) and Anuj Jain (BBA.LLB) are 3rd year students at National Law University Odisha] The issue of applicability of Goods and Services Tax (“GST”) on the remuneration of directors has prevailed since the very inception of the legislation. The bone of contention that needs to be settled is whether the remuneration paid to directors by companies falls within the ambit of...
Draft Framework for Securitisation of Standard Assets: Re-modelling the Indian Securities Market
[Adesh Sharma and Saksham Shrivastav are 3rd year B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) students at National University of Study and Research in Law, Ranchi] In an attempt to regulate the securities market in a more sophisticated direction and open up newer avenues, the Reserve Bank of India (‘RBI’) on June 8,2020 introduced the ‘Draft Framework for Securitisation of Standard Assets’ (‘Framework’)...
Call for Papers | National Law School of India Review
[Announcement on behalf of the National Law School of India Review] National Law School of India Review (NLSIR) is inviting contributions for its forthcoming Volume 33, Issue 1. About NLSIR is the flagship law journal of the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. In its 33rd year now, the NLSIR is a bi-annual, student-edited, peer-reviewed law journal, which holds the distinction of...
Call for Submissions: NLUJ Law Review Blog
[Announcement on behalf of the NLUJ Law Review Blog] NLUJ Law Review Blog (“Blog”) welcomes all kinds of submissions, including (but not limited to) articles, research pieces, opinions, case comments and short notes on any contemporary subject matter related to all the areas of law on a rolling basis. Authorship Co-authorship up to two authors is allowed. Refrain from mentioning the name...
CCI’s Decision to Eliminate Non-Compete Restrictions in Combinations
[Vishal Rajvansh is a third year student at National University of Studies and Research in Law, Ranchi] The Competition Commission of India (“CCI”) has released a press note dated 15 May 2020 seeking public comments regarding the examination of non-compete restrictions under the regulation of combinations. Notably, the CCI had earlier mandated the parties to a combination to furnish information...
Corporate Activism: Once Again Questioning the Purpose of a Company
[Rajat Maloo is a III year B.A., LL.B. (Hons.) student at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore] Recently, large corporations such as Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, and Facebook amongst several others have been expected to fulfil a different kind of social responsibility. Unilever and Johnson & Johnson were some of the few companies who have either discontinued or altered...
Identical Bids as Evidence of Bid Rigging: Reconciling Excel Crop Care and Rajasthan Cylinders
[Soumil Jhanwar is a 4th year B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) student at the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru] To establish bid rigging under section 3(3)(d) of the Competition Act, 2002 one must prove that the bidders had entered into an “agreement”, which has the effect of manipulation of bids. As per section 2(b) of the Act, an agreement need not be formal or written, and can be in the...
Relief Defendants in Recovery Proceedings: Implications of the Dave Committee’s Suggestion
[Pranav Mihir Kandada and Anuraag Bukkapatnam are 3rd year law students at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad] On June 16, 2020, SEBI notified the report of the High Level Committee under the chairmanship of Justice (Retd.) Anil R. Dave on the “Measures for Strengthening the Enforcement Mechanism of the Board and Incidental Issues”. The Committee examined the present securities laws and noted...
German Court’s Antitrust Decision Rules against Data Collection by Facebook
[Ridhi Arora and Hitoishi Sarkar are II Year B.A. LL.B (Hons.) students at Gujarat National Law University] On 23 June 2020, the Federal Court of Justice (Germany) provisionally confirmed charges of abuse of dominant position against Facebook. The judgment comes a year after the Federal Cartel Office (Germany) found Facebook guilty of exploiting its dominance to force users to share data from...
Decoding the Myths of Asset Value Maximisation in Insolvency
[Mudit Jain is a penultimate year B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) student at the National University of Advanced Legal Studies, Kochi] The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (“IBC”) envisages ‘asset value maximisation’ under the long title of the statute. This has been amply litigated before being settled that the role of the committee of creditors (“CoC”) in a corporate insolvency resolution process...
A Banker’s Tax: Accepting the Inevitability of Bailouts and Enhancing Government Response
[Karan Kamath is a 2020 B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) graduate from Symbiosis Law School, Pune] Since the 2008 financial crisis, regulators around the world have made regulations more stringent to prevent, inter alia,bank collapses and resultant bailouts. Governments maintain that bailouts are not something they wish to repeat. However, bailouts have been resorted to rather commonly. A 2016 economics...
Disgorgement by SEBI under Section 32A of IBC: Death-Knell for Insolvency Resolution?
[Rongeet Poddar is a graduate of West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences & Vishal Hablani is a final year student at West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences] The Securities and Exchange Board of India (“SEBI”) has released a ‘Report on the Measures for Strengthening the Enforcement Mechanism of the Board and Incidental Issues’ on 16 June 2020. The Report has...
The Troubled Waters of CCI’s Penalty Regime
[Akanshha Agrawal is a III year student at the National Law University, Delhi] The recent Competition Commission of India (CCI) order finding SKF India, Schaeffler India and Tata Steel guilty of forming an anti-competitive cartel has received much attention due to the regulator’s curious decision not to impose any penalty on the offenders. The CCI had taken a suo moto cognisance of the issue...
Investment Adviser Regulations: Settling the Dust between Advisory and Distribution Services
[Aditya Bhayal and Prachi Tripathi are 4th Year, B.A.LLB (Hons.) students at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad] In February 2020, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (“SEBI”) approved proposals on some regulatory changes to the SEBI (Investment Advisers) Regulations, 2013 (the “Regulations”). These changes come in the backdrop of four consultation papers which were released in 2016...
Obtaining Emergency Arbitral Relief in India for Foreign Seated Arbitrations: Judicial Innovation
[Ragini Agarwal and Aditya Singh Chauhan are B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) students at National Law University Jodhpur] The concept of emergency arbitration, though useful for the protection of assets or evidence, has not gained much traction legislatively in India. Despite recommendations of the 246th Report of the Law Commission of India and the Srikrishna Committee Report, the provisions to recognise the...
Demystifying the Interface between Securities Law and the IBC
[Hitoishi Sarkar and Yash More are II year students at Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar] On June 16, 2020, a high-level committee constituted by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (“SEBI”) under the chairmanship of Justice Anil R. Dave released its report titled Measures for Strengthening the Enforcement Mechanism of the Board and Incidental Issues (“SEBI...
IBC v. Arbitration: A Case for Prevalence of the IBC over the Arbitration and Conciliation Act
[Mayank Udhwani is a 5th year law student at National Law University, Jodhpur] The decision of the Mumbai Bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in Indus Biotech Private Limited v. Kotak India Venture Fund-I has recently made the headlines for allowing the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 [“Arbitration Act”] to prevail over the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 [“IBC”]. The...
Tax Avoidance under India-Mauritius Treaty: Shift towards a More Contextual Approach?
[Rajarshi Singh and Rakesh Sahu are penultimate year BA.LLB students at National University of Study and Research in Law, Ranchi] The Authority for Advance Ruling, New Delhi (AAR), in its order dated 26 March 2020 in Re Tiger Global International II Holdings, Mauritius denied the benefits claimed by the applicants under the India-Mauritius Double Tax Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) on the ground that...
Promoter-Friendly Amendments to the SEBI Takeover Regulations
Cash-starved companies are presently considering raising funds through various means during the economic downturn. When it comes to equity funding, the natural option would be to rely on their promoters to infuse more capital. Towards this end, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on 16 June 2020 issued amendments to the SEBI (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers)...
Decriminalization of Minor Economic Offences: A Step in the Right Direction?
[Pratik Sahai and Manjri Singh are IV year students at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad] Amidst the economic slowdown as a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic, there is an intention on the part of the Government to bring about much-awaited reforms to the corporate regulatory regime. The Ministry of Finance released a proposal on decriminalization of minor economic offences on 8 June 2020, and...
Third Party Funding of Disputes: Easing the Burden on Stressed Litigants
[Soham Banerjee is an Associate in the Dispute Resolution team of a law firm in Mumbai] With the outbreak of the of the Covid–19 virus, litigants are under immense stress owing to the non-functioning of the courts, except only for urgent matters. The judiciary, which is, in any event, overburdened with backlog and pendency of cases has been functioning in an extremely restricted manner...
How Banking Business Works: A Banking Lawyer’ Perspective
[Pramod Rao is Group General Counsel, ICICI Bank. He sets out a simplified explanation of a very complex system, broken down to basics. This post represents his personal views] Banks take deposits and pay interest on them. Banks lend money and receive interest on them. The difference between the two is margin. The margin pays for costs, such as employees’ salaries, branch rent and infrastructure...
Orders in the WhatsApp Leak Case: Technological Constraints and UPSI
[Pranav Mihir Kandada is a rising 3rd year student at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad] Ever since the first case of insider trading through online messaging about two decades ago, insider trading in the digital era has gained new contours over the years. In India, the advent of instant messaging services with end-to-end encryption has turned them into a new venue for communication of...
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