[Aditya Rajagopal is a graduate of NUJS, Kolkata (Batch of 2020) and is currently an associate at Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co] One of the contentious issues after the enactment of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (‘IBC’) has been regarding the transfer of pending ‘winding up’ proceedings to the National Company Law Tribunal (‘NCLT’). Section 434 of the Companies Act, 2013 (‘Act’)...
The Yes Bank – Zee Case: Settling the Discomfort around Letters of Comfort
[Debayan Gangopadhyay and Rashmi Birmole are final and penultimate year B.A., LL.B. students respectively at ILS Law College, Pune] Occasionally, a debtor’s residence in a different jurisdiction or lack of creditworthiness may attract concerns and reluctance on part of the creditor. What often follows is the need for additional credit support or a “quasi-security”. In this post, the authors deal...
Avoidance Proceedings After the Approval of the Resolution Plan
[Anjali Soni is a 2nd year student at National Law University, Odisha.] The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (“IBC”) enumerates four types of vulnerable transactions, namely preferential, undervalued, fraudulent and extortionate and provides the procedure for the avoidance of the same. The resolution professional while facilitating the resolution of the corporate debtor, is dutybound to...
Vodafone’s Triumph: One Step Closer to a Better Standard in FET?
[Achyutha GM is a 4th year B.Sc. LL.B. (Hons.) student at the Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar] It all began with an acquisition that Vodafone International Holdings B. V. (‘Vodafone’), the Dutch subsidiary of the UK-based Vodafone Group carried out in 2007. CGP Investments Limited (‘CGP’) is a special purpose vehicle based in the Cayman Islands for tax purposes that owns a...
NCLAT on the Treatment of Power Purchase Agreements in Liquidation
[Apoorva Soni is a III year B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) student at National University of Study and Research in Law, Ranchi] The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (“NCLAT”), by its decision in the matter of Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Ltd (GUVNL) v. Yes Bank Ltd dated October 20, 2020, held that a company could not terminate a Power Purchase Agreement (“PPA”) executed with a corporate debtor during...
Termination During Moratorium: An Alternative Perspective
[Kartik Adlakha is a 5th year B.B.A., LL.B. (Hons.) student at the Jindal Global Law School] On 24 June 2020, the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (‘NCLAT’) in the case of Tata Consultancy Services Limited v. Vishal Ghisulal Jain(‘TCS Case’)upheld the National Company Law Tribunal (‘NCLT’) Mumbai bench’s order of stay on termination of a Facilities Agreement (‘Agreement’). This was because...
Dissolution without Liquidation: A Disguised Strike-off under the IBC?
[Megha Mittal is an Associate at Vinod Kothari & Co] In a first of its kind, the National Company Law Tribunal, Bengaluru Bench (‘NCLT’), by way ofits order dated 16 November 2020 in Synew Steel Private Limited, has ordered for direct dissolution from a corporate insolvency resolution process (‘CIRP’), thereby waiving the mandatory requirement to undergo the liquidation process. The said...
Creditors with Rejected Claims: Methods to Address Inadequacies under the IBC
[Anchit Jasuja and Preksha Mehndiratta are 3rd year law students at the Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar] The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (‘IBC’) confers the resolution professional with the duty to collate and verify all claims submitted to him by the creditors. While the resolution professional does not formally have the power to reject claims, in practice the resolution...
Google’s Antitrust Saga: Pay to Play
[Anchit Nayyar is a 4th year BBA LLB (Hons) student at Symbiosis Law School, Pune] Through its order dated 9 November 2020, the Competition Commission of India (“CCI”) has launched investigations into allegations pertaining to Google abusing the dominance of its Android Operating System (“Android OS”) and the Play Store to give an unfair competitive advantage to its UPI application Google Pay...
SEBI Consults on Risk Management Committee
Risk management has acquired a crucial status in corporate governance. Its importance tends to get accentuated in the wake of crises. The concept came to the forefront after the global financial crisis more than a decade ago, and it became entrenched in specific sectors such as banking and financial services that were severely affected by the crisis. Even industrial accidents such as the BP oil...
GST Compensation Regime: The Covid Reality
[R. Kavipriyan and Pranshu Gupta are 4th year B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) students at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad] The Compensation Cess Controversy In the immediate aftermath of the Coronavirus pandemic, the Union Finance Minister announced that the revenue shortfall experienced by the States would not be entirely compensated by the Centre, claiming that the said shortfall is on account of an...
Towards a Proportionate Regulatory Framework for Virtual Currencies
[Anshul Semwal is a 5th year B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) student at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore] On April 6, 2018, the Reserve Bank of India (‘RBI’), a staunch critic of virtual currencies (‘VCs’), issued a circular banning the trade of VCs. The ban was short-lived as, two years later, the Supreme Court quashed the circular on the ground of proportionality in Internet and Mobile...
Data Protection, Privacy and the Law: Is India Ready Yet?
[Ali Waris Rao is an in-house legal counsel at Hindalco Industries Ltd., Aditya Birla Group. The views expressed are personal] The debate surrounding big data, privacy and security in India has gained considerable traction. One may ask how the legal and regulatory framework in India surrounding big data, surveillance, internet of things (IoT – Tech 5.0), cybersecurity and privacy balance...
Can Competition Law Regulate Privacy?
[Jyotsna Vilva is a 5th year B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) student at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore] The question of regulation of privacy and data protection issues through competition law has gained traction in recent years. In the past, while the European Commission has considered privacy to be a parameterof non-price competition, both the European Court of Justice and the...
Madras High Court on Regulating Online Gaming
[Prakshal Jain is a 2018 graduate of National Law School of India University, Bangalore and is working with the dispute resolution practice group of a law firm in Mumbai] The Madurai bench of the Madras High Court in D Siluvai Venance v. State noted that the increasing popularity of online gaming has created an alarming situation in the state of Tamil Nadu, especially among the youth. The Court...
The IBC’s Circle of Interpretation: Univalue Projects Pvt. Ltd. v. The Union of India
[Animesh Bordoloi is an Assistant Lecturer at the Jindal Global Law School and Hitoishi Sarkar is a III year student at the Gujarat National Law University. The authors would like to thank Mr. Rahul Sibal for his comments on the post] On August 18, 2020, a Single Judge of the Calcutta High Court in Univalue Projects Pvt. Ltd. v. The Union of India struck down an order passed by the Registrar of...
The Existential Crisis of a Decree-Holding Homebuyer under IBC
[Mayank Udhwani is a graduate of National Law University, Jodhpur] The decision of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (“NCLAT”) in Sushil Ansal v. Ashok Tripathi has become a cause for concern for the homebuyers. In this decision, the NCLAT has held that a homebuyer, who has obtained a decree in its favor from a court of competent jurisdiction, ceases to be a financial creditor. In this...
Balasore Alloys v. Medima: Rethinking Anti-Arbitral Injunctions
[Aarohi Chaudhuri is a second-year B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) student at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore] Anti-arbitration injunctions refer to injunctions granted by civil courts to stay the initiation or continuance of arbitration proceedings. Traditionally, Indian courts have laid down conflicting jurisprudence on civil courts’ powers to intervene in an arbitration by granting...
Karnataka High Court Decision in the Franklin Templeton Case
The Karnataka High Court yesterday issued its 336-page ruling on the highly contested winding up of six schemes of the Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund (“FTMF”). FTMF’s decision was the subject matter of challenge before various High Courts, and the Supreme Court directed a transfer of all related petitions to the Karnataka High Court, which held a mammoth virtual hearing over several days before...
SEBI Rules on Misapplication of IPO Funds
In an order issued yesterday involving Birla Pacific Medspa Limited (“BPML”), the Securities and Exchange Board of India (“SEBI”) was faced with an alleged misapplication of IPO funds by the company way back in 2011. Through a prospectus issued on June 29, 2011, the company raised Rs. 65.17 crores to establish “Evolve” Medspa centres across India, which constituted the primary purpose of the...
Call for Submissions: Special Issue of NLS Business Law Review on International Arbitration
[Announcement on behalf of the NLS Business Law Review] The Board of Editors of the National Law School Business Law Review is pleased to invite original and unpublished manuscripts for the Special Issue of the NLS Business Law Review. About the Institution The National Law School of India University is an institution of legal education focusing on legal and policy education in India at the...
SEBI Relaxes Norms for Delisting of a Listed Subsidiary
[Sanjana Arvind Kumar and Divya Rau are final year law students at Jindal Global Law School] The Securities Exchange Board of India (“SEBI”) through, its board meeting, on 29 September 2020, approved an amendment to the SEBI (Delisting of Equity Shares) Regulations, 2009 (“Delisting Regulations”). The amendment aims to simplify the delisting procedure for listed subsidiaries of listed companies...
Foreign Contribution (Regulatory) Amendment Act, 2020: A Challenge for Non-Profits?
[Shreya Mishra and Ayesha Bhattacharya are recent graduates of the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata. The authors would like to thank Prof. Umakanth Varottil for his comments] Recently, the Central Government froze the accounts of Amnesty International India, citing violation of foreign funding laws, while the latter has accused the Central Government of halting its...
Why is Bilateral Netting Relevant?
[Lakshmi Babu is a corporate lawyer with an interest in financial regulation] The Central Government has recently notified the Bilateral Netting of Qualified Financial Contracts Act, 2020 (“Netting Act”), which intends to implement the process of bilateral netting among eligible financial parties. The Netting Act is effective from October 1, 2020. Netting, in essence, means the off-setting of all...
Demystifying the Air around Lease and Rental Operational Debt
[Aridaman Raghav is a 3rd year B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) student at National University of Study and Research in Law, Ranchi] The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (‘NCLAT’) in Anup Dubey v. National Agricultural Co-operative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED) Ltd. & Ors.(7 October 2020) has held that lease rentals arising out of the use of a cold storage unit for commercial purpose can be...
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