[Aditi Nagpal is a 4th year BALLB student at Jindal Global Law School] The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) released a clarification through its General Circular 14/2020 dated 8 April 2020 which allows for extraordinary general meetings (EGMs) of companies to be conducted virtually. The Circular provides a welcome relief in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, and follows naturally in line...
Supreme Court Reopens the Limitation Period for Enforcement of Foreign Awards
[Smriti Shukla and Yash Raj are third year students of the National University of Study and Research in Law (NUSRL), Ranchi] In the recent judgment of the Supreme Court in Bank of Baroda v. Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. (17 March 2020), the question concerned the limitation period for the execution of the foreign decrees under section 44A of the Civil Procedure Code (CPC) in India. In an attempt to...
Supreme Court Rules on Limitation Period for Execution of Foreign Decrees in India
[Ankit Tripathi is a practicing advocate before the Supreme Court and Delhi High Court] In its judgement dated 17 March 2020, the Supreme Court in Bank of Baroda v. Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd ruled on the limitation period applicable to the execution of foreign decrees in India, after it recorded contrasting views of the different state High Courts on the issue. It held that the limitation period...
‘Control’ under the Competition Law Regime: Is the Ambiguity Finally Settled?
[Abhishek Tripathy is a IV year student and Akshita Totla a III year student, both at the Institute of Law, Nirma University] The Ministry of Corporate Affairs introduced the Draft Competition (Amendment) Bill, 2020 in February 2020. The Bill was a result of efforts of the Competition Law Review Committee, which was established with the objective of suggesting amendments to the Competition Act...
Statutory Limitation on Claims under the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Act – Part II
Should the Limitation Act be applicable? The MSMED Act is aimed at the expeditious resolution of purely commercial disputes where the terms of engagement are decided by private parties and government intervention is intended to secure an efficacious remedy for timely payment. Consequently, the MSMED Act should not be interpreted in a manner that provides remedies that have specifically been...
Statutory Limitation on Claims under the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Act – Part I
[Shinoj Koshy and Purvi Khanna are at L&L Partners, Delhi] One of the foremost requirements for the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) industry is the availability of credit and shorter working capital cycles. The working capital cycle of an MSME is the time taken to convert its receivables into cash, which is essential to run their small-scale operations. The Interest on Delayed...
Covid-19 Crisis: Analyzing the Reforms to Insolvency and Bankruptcy Laws
[Karan Sahi is a corporate lawyer and company secretary by profession, and Pranay Bhattacharya is a 3rd year BA LLB (Hons.) student at the Maharashtra National Law University, Aurangabad] The changing market dynamics from the coronavirus (“Covid-19”) has impacted almost every sector. The pandemic has not only caused global business disruption by halting the international trade, it has also...
6th GNLU Moot on Securities and Investment Law 2020
[Announcement from the organisers of the GNLU Moot on Securities and Investment Law] About the Organiser Gujarat National Law University is a premier university of law situated in Gandhinagar, Gujarat seeking to promote research-based education among its students by way of providing excellent education, and opportunities in various co-curricular and extra-curricular activities for holistic growth...
Supreme Court on Enlarged Scope of Leniency for Mistakes in Filing Income Tax Returns
[Amar Tandon is a IV year student and Mansi Mishra a III year student at the National Law Institute University, Bhopal] In Rajasthan State Electricity Board v. Dy. Commissioner of Income Tax (decided on 19 March 2020), the Supreme Court set a precedent for expanding the scope of leniency under section 143(1-A) of the Income Tax Act, 1961. In this post, the authors seek to discuss the details of...
Termination of Worker For ‘Loss of Confidence’ Does Not Amount To Retrenchment
[Madhusudan Bose and Nayantara Chauhan are Advocates at PRA Law Offices, Delhi] Indian law grants strong protection to certain types of employees (statutorily referred to as ‘workmen’, but for convenience herein as ‘workers’) against termination of their employment by employers (or ‘retrenchment’). A worker is entitled to retrenchment compensation at the rate of 15 days average pay for every year...
Buyers’ Cartels in Indian Competition Law: Is it Time?
[Adyasha Samal is a student at the Hidayatullah National Law University] On 20 February 2020, the Ministry of Corporate affairs sought public comments on the Competition (Amendment) Bill 2020, which proposes sweeping substantive and procedural changes to the Competition Act 2002 (the “Act”). Among these is the significant inclusion of buyers’ cartels within the definition of cartels in section...
Is the Indian Arbitration Regime suited for The IBA Rules On Evidence? – Part II
[Muskan Arora is a III year B.A. LL.B (Hons.) student at the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata] In the first part of this post, I critique the presence of an undefined good faith standard in imposing sanctions upon the parties in the International Bar Association Rules on the Taking of Evidence (‘IBA Rules’) pursuant to article 9(7) and how the same is particularly...
Is the Indian Arbitration Regime Suited for the IBA Rules On Evidence? – Part I
[Muskan Arora is a III year B.A. LL.B (Hons.) student at the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata] The 2010 iteration of the International Bar Association Rules on the Taking of Evidence (‘IBA Rules’) institutes a commendable effort at harmonizing standards on the procedure for taking of evidence in the international arbitration regime. After the first set of rules...
National Action Plan on Business and Human rights: A Critique
[Vedangini Bisht is a third year student at National Law University Delhi] In November 2018, at the Business and Human Rights Forum in Geneva, India formally announced that it would come up with a National Action Plan (NAP) on Business and Human Rights. This makes India one of 45 countries to have a NAP on business and human rights or those that are in the process of finalising a NAP. The aim is...
Can Covid-19 be Classified as a Valid Force Majeure Event?
[Anirudh Agrawal and Rishabh Sharma are 4th year BA.LL.B. (Hons.) students at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad] Since the widespread reporting of cases of the coronavirus, Covid-19, around the world, several countries have imposed travel bans, citizens have been quarantined and the infected persons have been isolated, all with a view to stop the proliferation of the virus. Amidst such an...
Supreme Court Reopens the Issue of “Venue” versus “Seat”
[Shreesh Chadha is a final year student at Jindal Global Law School, Sonipat] The dichotomy between the “venue or place of arbitration” and “seat of arbitration” has been the subject matter of a plethora of judgements by the Supreme Court. This issue was recently reopened before the Supreme Court, and has resulted in contrary positions of law, warranting serious reconsideration. A full bench of...
The (Active) Involvement of Directors during Insolvency Proceedings
[Kushagra Srivastava is a 3rd year B.A.L.L.B. (Hons.) student at National Law Institute University, Bhopal] Section 17(1)(a) of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (the “Code”) vests the management of the affairs of a corporate debtor in the interim resolution professional (“IRP”) on the insolvency commencement date in accordance with section 16 of the Code. This implies the imposition of...
Enforceability of Arbitral Awards in India: “Absence of” Territorial Jurisdiction Creates New Obstacles
[Dhruva Gandhi is an Advocate at the Bombay High Court] Once a claimant has an arbitral award in its favour, a question arises as to which court can enforce the award and help recover its dues. Ordinarily, a court that has jurisdiction over the award-debtor or its assets would be the appropriate forum. In India, though, there are now conflicting judicial decisions on this proposition, only adding...
Settlements and Commitments in the Indian Competition Regime: Construing Practicality
[Ashu Bhargav is a student at the Faculty of Law, University of Delhi and Yavipriya Gupta at the Hidayatullah National Law University] The Indian competition law regime has witnessed significant developments in the past decade, as a consequence of which the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has proposed a set of amendments to the existing Competition Act 2002 (the Act), in its Draft Competition...
The BGS Case: Cleared The Air Or Muddied The Settling Waters?
[Prince Todi is a 3rd year student at Hidayatullah National Law University, Raipur and Shruti Khanijow an Advocate at the Supreme Court of India] In the past decade, there has been an exponential growth of arbitration in India. The fundamentals of party autonomy, neutrality and speedy disposal of disputes have not only attracted private parties but also states to prefer arbitration over...
Covid 19: Consequences on Contractual Obligations
[Meenal Maheshwari is the lead transactional counsel at Essar Group] With the pandemic that has subsumed the world, a common question that corporates are dealing with is the impact of the coronavirus epidemic on already contracted obligations. The most relevant question raise is: at what point does Covid-19 pandemic allow a party to delay performance, not perform, renegotiate the existing terms...
SEBI’s Proposed Framework for Corporate Bonds and Debenture Trustees
[Rashmi Birmole is a III year B.A., LL.B. student at ILS Law College, Pune] Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (“IL&FS”), a non-banking finance company (“NBFC”) belonging to a sub-category of systemically important non-deposit accepting core investment companies was, at the time, engaged in financing and developing infrastructure projects. In June 2018, the collapse of IL&FS...
Examining the Legal Nature of Commercial Papers: Securities or Money Market Instruments?
[Priyanka Sunjay is an associate at L&L Partners Law Offices. The author thanks Jay Parikh and Varun Kumar for their inputs] On 22 October 2019, the Securities Exchange Board of India (“SEBI”) issued a circular titled ‘Framework for Listing of Commercial Paper’ (“SEBI Circular”) in order to enable listing and trading of commercial papers on stock exchanges. This poses certain important...
IBC Threshold Raised: Analysis and Implications
[Megha Mittal and Shreya Jain are Associates at Vinod Kothari & Co.] The seemingly low threshold of Rs. 1,00,000 for the initiation of insolvency proceedings has been a persistent concern given the possibility of its exploitation by frivolous actions. While rumours about raising the threshold limit for initiating insolvency process have long been swirling, the recent outbreak of Covid-19 came...
Extraterritorial Compliance with Corporate Governance Norms
[Shubham Gupta is a 4th law student at Institute of Law, Nirma University, Ahmedabad] The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has elucidated its position with the respect to the extra-territorial application of its corporate governance norms. In a recent informal guidance in the matter of KCP Limited, SEBI interpreted regulation 24(1) of the SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure...
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