[Tanaya Desai is a 5th-year student at ILS Law College, Pune] Introduction In its press release dated June 12, 2018, the Securities Exchange Board of India (“SEBI”) expressed its intention to consider facilitating unlisted companies incorporated in India to directly list their equity share capital on foreign exchanges and, concurrently, of foreign firms on Indian exchanges. In furtherance of the...
National Financial Reporting Authority: Is There Really a Need?
[Anirudh Singh is a 4thyear B.A LL.B (Hons.) student of NALSAR University, Hyderabad] On 1 March 2018, the Union Cabinet gave its assent to National Financial Reporting Authority (NFRA), which is considered to be a major development for the regulation of financial auditing in big companies. As recommended by the Standing Committee on Finance in its 21streport, the NFRA will assume its role as an...
Appreciable Adverse Effects on Competition and Circumstantial Evidence in Antitrust Investigations
[Tanya Varshney is a fourth-year BA LLB student from Jindal Global Law School] The effect of information exchange and collusion amongst firms can have a significant impact on the market structure. When firms collude to fix prices and supply levels, they hold a great degree of market power. However, in the absence of a written contractual agreement as direct evidence, is there a presumption of...
Currency Conversion Rate in Execution Proceedings: The Conundrum
[Garima Mehra and D Sharma are both Advocates] The Supreme Court’s observations in its recent decision in Meenakshi Saxena v. ECGC Ltd. highlight the issues that arise whenever a decree is silent with regard to the reckoning date of conversion of foreign currency into Indian rupees and the methodology to be followed by the executing court in such cases. In this case, a dispute arose with respect...
Comment on the Explosives Case: A Jurisprudential Analysis of Penalties under Competition Law
[Abhiroop Saha is a III Year student at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore] The primary aim of this post is to analyze the Explosives case based on the verdicts rendered by the Competition Commission of India (CCI order) and subsequently by the Competition Appellate Tribunal on appeal (COMPAT order)...
Age-limit Criteria for Non-Executive Directors under Amended SEBI Listing Regulations: Prospective or Retrospective?
[Gaurav Pingle is a practising Company Secretary in Pune and can be reached at [email protected]] Introduction On June 2 2017, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (‘SEBI’) constituted a committee under the chairmanship of Mr. Uday Kotak for improving the standards of corporate governance of listed companies in India. On October 5, 2017, Kotak Committee submitted its report to SEBI...
Will the new Section 90 unravel benami holdings in companies? Or will it misfire?
Section 90 and related provisions of the Companies Act, 2013, have been brought into force on 13th June 2018 alongwith related Rules. I had discussed earlier here some issues on Section 90, at a time when the new provisions were made part of the Act through the Companies Amendment Act 2017 but were not yet brought into force. Now that they have been duly brought into force and require action...
IBC Amendment Ordinance 2018: At Crossroads With RERA
[Garima Mehra and D Sharma are both Advocates] The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Ordinance 2018 (the “Ordinance”) was recently promulgated by the President. It incorporates the key recommendations of the Insolvency Law Reform Committee’s (“ILRC”) report published on 3 April 2018 (Report). One of the significant recommendations is the inclusion of homebuyers within the ambit of...
Call for Submissions: NLUJ Law Review
[The following announcement is posted on behalf of the NLUJ Law Review] About the Review The NLUJ Law Reviewis the flagship journal of National Law University, Jodhpur, established with the objective of promoting academic research and fostering debate on contemporary legal issues in India. It is a bi-annual, double-blind student reviewed and edited journal focusing on an inter-disciplinary...
Analysis of a Competition Commission Order on Abuse of Dominant Position
[Apurva Singh is a third year student at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore] In this post, I claim that the Competition Commission of India’s (“CCI’s)order in Bijay Poddar v. Coal India Ltd. (2017) is (1) violative of the Competition Act, 2002 (the “Act”) and (2) inefficient as per principles of law and economics. I shall first detail the facts and order of the CCI and then...
Analysing the Change in Law Regarding Issuance of Sweat Equity Shares
[Vartika Tiwari is a 3rdYear student of National Law Institute University, Bhopal and is on the Editorial Board of NLIU Law Review] On 16 January 2016, the Government launched the “Startup India”campaign and ever since it has been making constant efforts to promote startups and make the country business friendly. There is no denying the fact that India has come a long way since then. In fact, it...
Bombay High Court on Arbitration Agreement in an Unstamped Instrument
[Mansi M Patel is an Associate at IndusLaw] The Bombay High Court in Coastal Marine Construction and Engineering Limited v Garware-Wall Ropes Limited (March 2018) observed that in accordance with the amended provisions of section 11 of the Arbitration & Conciliation Act, 1996 (the “Act”), the role of the court to refer a dispute to arbitration is narrow and is limited to examine the existence...
Resolving the Anti-Trust Concerns Raised by Insolvency Resolution Plans
[Priyadarsini T P is a 3rd year B.A LL.B (Hons) student at National University of Advanced Legal Studies, Kochi] Recently, Vedanta and JSW Steel received approval from the Competition Commission of India (“CCI”) for acquiring the insolvent entities Electrosteel Steels Ltd. and Monnet Ispat and Energy respectively. Although section 238 of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 contains a non...
Revisiting “Sham” as a Ground for Piercing the Corporate Veil
[Ashwin Murthy and Sathvik Chandrasekhar are 4th year students from NALSAR University of Law] The doctrine of piercing the corporate veil was clarified in India with the landmark case of Balwant Rai Saluja v Air India (2013), recognising that the veil should rarely be lifted. Balwant directly relied upon the UK case of Prest v Petrodel which similarly narrowed the scope of such piercing (read...
Demystifying ‘Board Inter-locks’ under SEBI’s Amended Listing Regulations
[Gaurav Pingle is a practising Company Secretary in Pune and can be reached at [email protected]] Introduction On June 2 2017, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (‘SEBI’) constituted a committee under the chairmanship of Mr. Uday Kotak for improving the standards of corporate governance of listed companies in India. On October 5, 2017, Kotak Committee submitted its report to SEBI. The...
SEBI Informal Guidance on Foreign Portfolio Investments in Unlisted Non-Convertible Debentures
[Kosha Thaker is a corporate lawyer with a law firm in Mumbai] Background Earlier, registered foreign portfolio investors (“FPIs”) were permitted to invest only in listed non-convertible debentures (“NCDs”) or to-be listed non-convertible debentures (i.e. if the NCDs were listed within a period of 15 days from such investment). There was, however, a special carve out for FPIs investing in...
Fallacy of the Inverse: CCI’s Application of Leniency Provisions
[Mrinali Komandur is a third year student at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore and is an editor of the National Law School Business Law Review] On April 19, 2018, the Competition Commission of India (“CCI”) granted, for the first time since the inception of the leniency provisions, a 100% reduction in penalty to Panasonic India in the Zinc-carbon dry cell manufacturers...
Adherence to Timelines in the Insolvency Resolution Process
[Medhashree Verma is a 2nd year B.B.A, LL.B. student at National Law University Odisha, Cuttack] One of the main objectives behind the enactment of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (the “Code”) was to provide for a speedy system for resolution of stressed companies. A healthy insolvency regime requires fast insolvency resolution for minimising creditors’ losses and maximising the asset...
Additional Payment for Work Done Outside the Scope of Construction Contracts
[Saksham Gahoi is a 4th Year Student of National Law Institute University, Bhopal] Introduction What can be constituted as a work within or outside the scope of work under a construction contract has been a point of dispute amongst parties resulting in numerous commercial arbitrations. This leads to another question whether such work which is outside the scope of contract entitles a party to...
SEBI Order in the USL Case: Lessons on Tunneling
In countries that are replete with corporate group structures (as in India), it is common to find transactions between a company on the one hand and a counterparty that has some relationship with it on the other. Referred to as a related party transaction (RPT), this could generate benefits if carried out on an arm’s length basis. At the same time, RPTs can be used to divert wealth from listed...
Status of Homebuyers in Corporate Insolvency: Will Ordinance Assure Relief and Returns?
[Swaha Sinha is a 3rd year B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) student at Symbiosis Law School, Pune] The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (the Code) has been subject to endless scrutiny and suggested changes, with some being implemented through recent amendments. Most strikingly, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs constituted an expert panel to recommend amendments to this ground-breaking statute, resulting in the...
Tying vs Bundling Arrangements: An Attempt at Resolving the Lacuna in Indian Law
[Karan Trehan and Prakhar Bhatnagar are II year B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) students at the NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad] Various types of conditional arrangements exist in the commercial markets. They are conditional in that their conclusion is made subject to acceptance by other parties of additional obligations which, by their “nature or according to commercial usage”, may or may not have...
Cross Border Mergers in India: RBI Notification and Some Implications
[Roshni Menon is a 5th year B.A., LL.B (Hons.) student at School of Law, Christ University in Bangalore] Upon tracing the history of cross border mergers in India, one finds that the erstwhile Companies Act, (“1956 Act”) did contain provisions relating to the subject, however limited in its application. This law permitted a merger between a foreign company and an Indian company where the...
Section 29A of the Insolvency Code: A Critique of its Impact & Recent Developments
[Varun Khandelwal is a Third Year B.A., LL.B. (Hons.)student at The W. B. National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS)] Introduction The insolvency regime in India is still in its nascent stage and it has not been too long since the Bankruptcy Law Reforms Committee submitted its report, which laid the foundation of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016(the “Code”). Initially, theCode...
Testing the Validity of a Type of Shareholders’ Agreements in India
[Priya Garg is a 4th year student at the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (WBNUJS)] In the Indian context, shareholders’ agreements (SHAs) have been widely categorized into two types – one, that impose restrictions on the transferability of shares held by the shareholders who happen to be the parties to the SHA (type 1 SHA) and the other, which deal with the matters relating...
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