[Ashi Mehta and Parv Kaushik are IV year B.A L.L.B (Hons.) students at the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru] On 17 April 2020, the Indian Ministry of Commerce & Industry issued a press note, which makes foreign direct investment (FDI) from an entity located in a land-bordering country subject to prior government approval. The stated aim of this amendment is to curb...
RBI’s Guidelines on Regulation of Payment Aggregators and Payment Gateways
[Abhishek Tripathy is a fourth year law student at the Institute of Law, Nirma University] In March 2020, the Reserve Bank of India (“RBI”) issued the Guidelines on Regulation of Payment Gateways and Aggregators, which issued in furtherance of a discussion paper released by the RBI in September 2019. The guidelines have been made effective from 1 April 2020. The extensive use of electronic modes...
Facebook-Jio Deal: Big Data, Competition and Privacy
[Anupriya Dhonchak is a IV year student at the National Law University, Delhi] Facebook recently signed an all cash deal worth ₹ 43,574 crores to acquire a 9.99 percent stake in Jio Platforms, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited’s (RIL). It is the largest foreign direct investment (FDI) in the technology sector in India thus far. The deal brings together Jio, India’s biggest telecom and...
OECD’s Relief Measures and the Indian Tax Regime
[Vishal Rajvansh is a 3rd year BA.LLB student at the National University of Study and Research in Law, Ranchi] The effect of the fight against Covid-19 has compelled several countries to implement unprecedented measures, such as restrictions on the free movement of people and goods, shutting down large parts of the economy and isolating a significant proportion of the population. Notably, the...
Super Priority Financing: An Opportunity in a Crisis
[Apoorva Upadhyay and Parthsarthi Srivastava are 3rd year BBA.LL.B students at National Law University Odisha] As the economic conditions continue to deteriorate, several corporations will likely turn to file for bankruptcy protection in the near future. One of the most sought after alternatives for such distressed companies would be access to capital to ensure minimum liquidity and continuation...
Research Reports: Converting UPSI into Public Information
[Ashlesha Mittal is an associate at Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas and a graduate of National Law University, Jodhpur] Five orders were released by the Assessing Officer of Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on April 22, 2020, April 13, 2020 and March 26, 2020 against Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance Company Limited, Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC Limited, SBI Funds Management Private Limited, IDFC...
An Evidence Based Analysis of Relevant Market: The Case of Ridesharing in Delhi National Capital Region (India)
[Amol Kulkarni is Director (Research), at CUTS International, Jaipur, India. Swasti Gupta is a Research Associate at CUTS International, Jaipur, India. Parveer Singh Ghuman is a former employee of CUTS International who participated in the study. Ujjwal Kumar is a Policy Analyst at CUTS International, Jaipur, India. This post was originally published in the Oxford Business Law Blog, and can be...
Is the Indian CSR Legal Framework COVID Ready?
[Ayush Vijayvargiya is a corporate lawyer in Mumbai and a graduate of NALSAR University of Law] Since the onset of COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdown in India, there has been constant public demand for increased spending by the Government to address shortage of medical supplies in hospitals, food and monetary allowance to urban and rural poor, shelter and food for homeless people, funding to...
Corporate Governance in the Age of a Pandemic
Experience from past crises suggests that companies with robust corporate governance systems and practices are able to weather a storm better than others. Similarly, it is reasonable to hypothesize that, even amid the throes of a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic, referred to in corporate speak at an “unknown unknown” that has sparked a systemic risk, well governed companies can more optimally...
Revisiting Corporate Insolvency: An Empirical Case for Protection of Operational Creditors
[Surbhi Soni is a third year student at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore] The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016 adopts the conventional court-mediated contract enforcement mechanism for debt resolution and restructuring of a corporate debtor. The basic principle of such resolution is that it mirrors the application of a predetermined (or ex ante) contractual bargain...
Mitigating Coronavirus Crisis: Income Tax Policy Response from an Indian Perspective
[Hardeep Singh Chawla is an LL.M. candidate in International Taxation (Class of 2020) at NYU School of Law. This post seeks to propose various substantive changes that may be introduced into India’s tax regime to provide some succor to individuals and other entities, so as to aid them in navigating through these challenging times and rebuilding the economy] The Indian government recently...
Competition Conundrum during the Crisis
[Surbhi Lahoti is a fourth year law student at Government Law College, Mumbai] COVID-19, a health emergency, has taken an unprecedented toll on the world economy. The lockdowns in India have resulted in supply chain disruption and panic buying by the consumers even after multiple assurances from the Government. The Essential Commodities Act, 1955 regulates the prices of the essential goods and...
Withdrawal of Resolution Plans due to Covid-19: A Legal Analysis
[Sikander Hyaat and Sara Jain are 5th year B.A., LL.B. (Hons.) students at MNLU Mumbai] The outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic has caused substantial market disruptions and deterioration of consumption. Recently, the Fitch Ratings has reduced India’s GDP growth forecast from 5.1% to 2%, making it the slowest growth rate over the past 30 years. Consequently, businesses are facing severe...
Carry Back Losses: A Liquidity Booster in the Current Pandemic
[Kailash Nath P S S is an Advocate practising at Hyderabad and is a Chartered Accountant by qualification] Following the outbreak of COVID-19 in India, the Central Government declared it as an epidemic and declared a lockdown from 21 March 2020 by invoking the provisions of the Disaster Management Act, 2005 and the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897. Accordingly, the overall economic activity has...
The Specific Relief (Amendment) Act 2018: Applicable to Pending Proceedings? – Part III
[Rahul Sibal is an advocate who graduated from NALSAR Hyderabad. The author thanks Purvi Khanna, Nishtha Gupta and Anirudh Ramakrishnan for their comments on the draft version. However, the views expressed are the author’s alone. The author can be contacted at [email protected].] [The first and second posts in the series can be accessed here and here] In the previous post, the author analysed...
The Specific Relief (Amendment) Act 2018: Applicable to Pending Proceedings? – Part II
[Rahul Sibal is an advocate who graduated from NALSAR Hyderabad. The author thanks Purvi Khanna, Nishtha Gupta and Anirudh Ramakrishnan for their comments on the draft version. However, the views expressed are the author’s alone. The author can be contacted at [email protected].] [The first post in the series can be accessed here.] As discussed in the previous post, some practitioners have...
Decoding the Judicial Logjam Surrounding the ‘Seat’ of Arbitration
[Soham Banerjee is an Associate (Dispute Resolution) in a law firm in Mumbai and Salona Mittal is an advocate at the Bombay High Court] There is no gainsaying the fact that determination of the ‘seat’ of arbitration is a vexed question in law, having undergone multiple (and often conflicting) judicial interpretation. Identifying the seat of arbitration is a crucial exercise, since the...
SEBI’s Consultation Paper on Pricing of Preferential Issues and Open Offer Exemption
[Rongeet Poddar is a 5th Year student at West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences] The Securities and Exchange Board of India (“SEBI”) on 22 April 2020 issued a consultation paper for easing pricing norms for preferential issues in companies having stressed assets. It aims to provide objective criteria for classifying a company as ‘stressed’. The document issued by the securities...
Banking on Force Majeure: Honouring Bank Guarantees in Times of a Pandemic
[Abhilash Agrawal is a legal officer at a private bank. In this post, he writes about the conflicting opinions given by the Bombay and Delhi High Courts on whether banks can be restrained from honouring bank guarantees and letters of credit by citing Covid-19 and subsequent disruptions caused due to it as force majeure. While the Bombay High Court has categorically denied such relief to...
The Dramatic Return of Virtual Currencies to India
[Meenal Maheshwari Shah is the lead transactional counsel of the Essar Group. The post was first published on In-House Community] A virtual currency (VC) is type of digital currency which is a representation of value, issued by private developers and denominated in their own unit of account. The concept of VC covers a wider array of “currencies,” ranging from simple IOUs of issuers (such as...
The Specific Relief (Amendment) Act 2018: Applicable to Pending Proceedings? – Part I
[Rahul Sibal is an advocate who graduated from NALSAR Hyderabad. The author thanks Nilima Bhadbhade, and Varun Malik for their comments on the draft. However, the views expressed are the author’s alone.] An Expert Committee was constituted on 28 January 2016 with the purpose of reviewing the Specific Relief Act, 1963. The Committee recommended several substantive changes to the Act, with one of...
Delhi High Court on Amended Timelines under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act
[Divyansha Agrawal and Kanwar Abhay Singh are practicing lawyers at the Delhi High Court and are associate lawyers with Advani and Co.] Section 29A of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 deals with the time limit for passing an arbitral award. Currently, the Act provides a time limit of 12 months after the pleadings are complete for the tribunal to complete the arbitration proceeding and...
New CSR Amendment Brings New Challenges for Implementing Agencies
[Tanya Nair is a 4th year B.A.LLB.(Hons.) student at NLIU, Bhopal] On 13 March 2020 the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) invited comments from the public concerning the draft Companies (Corporate Social Responsibility Policy) Amendment Rules, 2020. The draft amendment, once notified, will make significant changes to the corporate social responsibility policies of various companies. The MCA has...
Debarment of Company Auditor: A Cursory Death Note
[Shubham Nahata is a 3rd year student of Hidayatullah National Law University] Chapter X of the Companies Act, 2013 contains provisions for regulating audit and auditors of the companies. Among other things, the chapter deals with the appointment, removal, disqualifications, and resignation of company auditors. Recently, the Bombay High Court in N. Sampath Ganesh v. Union of India dealt with the...
Section 61 of the IBC: A Case for Contextual Statutory Interpretation
[Hitoishi Sarkar and Yash More are II year students at Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar] Section 61 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 provides for appeals from the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) to the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT). However, section 61 does not mention, in express terms, any details regarding the mechanism for calculating the...
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