Blog Posts
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Supreme Court upholds NCLT
[Posted by Mihir Naniwadekar] The Business Standard reports that the Supreme Court of India has upheld the validity of the National Company Law Tribunal. A Constitution Bench of the Court delivered the judgment more than a year after hearing arguments on an appeal filed against a decision of the Madras High Court in R. Gandhi v. Union of India. In an earlier post, I had…
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The Supreme Court’s Judgment in the Reliance Dispute – Part II
[Posted by V. Niranjan] A previous post outlined the issues that arose in the Reliance judgment and summarised the Court’s conclusions. In this post, I discuss two of these in more detail – the doctrine of identification, and the binding nature of an MoU under the Companies Act, 1956. As to the first issue, it…
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The Supreme Court’s Judgment in the Reliance Dispute – Part I
[Posted by V. Niranjan] The Supreme Court’s judgment today in Reliance Natural Resources Ltd. [“RNRL”] v. Reliance Industries Ltd. [“RIL”] turns on several important propositions of corporate and contract law. It has been widely reported that RIL prevailed by a majority of 2:1. This is incorrect, for Justice Sudershan Reddy’s separate opinion concurred with the…
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Insurance Companies and Income Tax
[Posted by Shantanu Naravane] The Bombay High Court, in an important case decided last month, clarified the position on the taxation of insurance companies. This was the decision in ICICI Prudential v. ACIT (2010 Bombay High Court). The controversy stemmed from the implications of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Actuarial Report and Abstract) Regulations,…
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Vicarious Liability for a Company’s Offences
[Posted by Shantanu Naravane] The Delhi High Court, in Vishnu Prakash Bajpai v. SEBI, seems to have widened the scope of the vicarious liability of persons for offences by companies, under section 27 of the Act. The issue came before the Court by virtue of a petition for quashing of criminal proceedings, under section 482…
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The Meaning of a “Debt”
[Posted by V. Niranjan] We have discussed the role of the Debt Recovery Tribunal on this blog, and noted the Supreme Court’s decision in Nahar holding that an “independent suit” filed by a borrower is maintainable in civil court, despite the provisions of the Recovery of Debts Due to Banks and Financial Institutions Act, 1993…
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Commercial Arguments against Corruption
[Posted by Shantanu Naravane] An issue discussed repeatedly in commercial circles is the dilemma between the ethical arguments against corruption, and the commercial arguments in favour of ‘efficient grease’. This dilemma is particularly felt when facing bureaucratic bottlenecks in countries like India (the ‘when in Rome’ argument). The latest edition of the Economist carries an…
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Changes to Minimum Pricing Norms for Transfers of Indian Securities
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] (In his previous post, Tanmay Amar examined the new base pricing norms for issue of securities by Indian companies to non-resident investors. He now follows it up with an analysis of the new RBI circular, which is hot off the press, that amends pricing norms for transfers of securities between a…
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FDI in Trusts
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] (In the following post, Abhishek Tripathi, an independent legal practitioner, and Mani Gupta, an Associate at Luthra & Luthra examine some complexities in the regulations pertaining to FDI in trusts) The recently notified Consolidated FDI Policy of the Government of India (“FDI Policy”), in para 3.3.3, prescribes that ‘FDI in Trusts…
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Proposed changes in India’s arbitration law: Part I
[Posted by Mihir Naniwadekar] The Ministry of Law and Justice has recently released a Consultation Paper on Arbitration on ‘Proposed Amendments to the Arbitration & Conciliation Act, 1996’. We would like to thank Mr. Bhushan Shah for bringing this to our attention. In this post, I will briefly look at two of the main changes…