[Srihari Gopal and Vedant Malpani are fifth year students at Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar] On June 8, 2020, the Ministry of Finance released a notification inviting comments on a proposal to decriminalise 39 minor offences. The proposal comes in a long line of measures initiated by the government to revive businesses and ‘unburden’ the courts in light of the Covid-19 related...
Two-tier Arbitration in India: An Unclear Path
[Gaurav Jairaj is a 3rd year student at National Law University Odisha and Gaurav Kumar a 3rd year student at Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University Lucknow] Arbitration generally confers supremacy to the party autonomy. It gives flexibility to parties to adopt the rules and procedures for resolution of disputes between them. Two-tier arbitration or appellate arbitration is the reflection...
Hub and Spoke Cartels: A Perspective on Future Investigations
[Aditya Goyal and Shreya Chandhok are students at National Law Institute University, Bhopal] Amidst the ever-increasing anti-competitive concerns and the inadequacy of the present competition regime to tackle the emerging issues, the Indian Government introduced the draft Competition (Amendment) Bill, 2020 in March this year. One of the proposed amendments in the Bill widens the scope of...
Fixing Limits to the Number of Assignments for an Insolvency Professional: A Bad Idea
[Ragini Agarwal and Mayank Udhwani are 5th Year B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) students at National Law University, Jodhpur] In its latest Discussion Paper, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (‘IBBI’) has proposed to issue guidelines for imposing a cap on the number of assignments that an insolvency professional (‘IP’) can take up at a time. In this post, the authors argue that setting a limit on...
Equalisation Levy in India: The Impediments of Extra-Territoriality
[Vedangini Bisht and Shubham Chaudhary are third year students at National Law University, Delhi] India recently passed its Finance Act 2020 to expand the scope of equalisation levy, a type of digital service tax, charged to non-residential e-commerce businesses. However, the Act (passed on March 27, 2020) has extra-territorial application, since it attempts to tax the income earned from...
Foray into Global Capital Markets: Is India Inc. Ready for It?
[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...
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