[Job Michael Mathew is a 4th year BA.LL.B (Hons) student at NALSAR University of Law] Introduction In October 2009, for every dollar one could purchase 1309 bitcoins. At the beginning of 2017, the price of one bitcoin was close to $1000. It attained $5000 in October and nearly doubled in November. In December it rose to $20000 in some exchanges. This post does not attempt to document the reasons...
Side-pocketing: A plausible liquidity management tool for the Indian mutual fund industry
[Param Pandya is a Research Fellow in the Corporate Law and Financial Regulation vertical at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy. The author is thankful to Prof. Jayanth R Varma, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad for his valuable comments. Views are personal. This post was first published in the Oxford Business Law Blog] An illiquid asset may lead to reduced returns and increased redemptions in...
Fork in the Road – Nissan’s Arbitration Against India
[Utsav Prashar is a 2014 graduate of NALSAR University of Law] The legal maxim Ubi jus ibi remedium expresses that there is no wrong without a remedy.[1] In the landmark case of Ashby v. White,[2] the House of Lords observed: “When the law clothes a man with a right he must have means to vindicate and maintain it……and it is a vain thing to imagine a right without a remedy”.[3] The...
More on SEBI’s Order in the Price Waterhouse Case
In an earlier post, Jayant Thakur had discussed the order of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) passed against Price Waterhouse last week. In addition, readers may find the following two further pieces on the legalities of the SEBI order of relevance: In a column titled “SEBI’s ban onPwC:Learnings for an auditor” in Bar & Bench, Kanwardeep Singh examines SEBI’s...
Educoncours’ 1st International Essay Writing Competition on Corporate Law, 2018
[Announcement on behalf of Educoncours] About the Competition The competition aims at allowing law students to express their opinions with the world, which includes some suggestions, critical analysis of the present corporate world, their innovative ideas which might lead to some widespread contribution in this area of law. This is an opportunity for every law student to discover this wide ambit...
Freezing Injunctions in Commercial Disputes
[Niranjan Sankar Rao is a fourth year B.A., LL.B. (Hons.) student at Jindal Global Law School, Sonipat] In this post, I attempt to differentiate between the approaches taken by the Bombay and Delhi High Courts on freezing injunctions. This subject has not received much certainty in commercial disputes despite its popularity in intellectual property rights infringement cases. I attempt to...
SEBI’s order against Price Waterhouse firms/partners
SEBI passed an order on 10th January 2018 against CA firms practicing under the brand/banner of Price Waterhouse and two of its partners. The Order debars them from issuing, for two years, audit certificates of listed companies, compliance certificates under specific securities laws of listed companies & SEBI registered intermediaries, etc. It has also required the auditor firm, jointly with...
Scope of Moratorium under Section 14 of the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code, 2016 – An Analysis
[Maneck Mulla is the Proprietor of M Mulla Associates, Mumbai] The prohibition contained in section 14 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016, (“the Code”) against the initiation and continuation of legal proceedings has recently been a topic of discussion in rulings of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (“NCLAT”) and the High Court of Allahabad and has now become an open question of...
New Section 90 in Companies Amendment Act 2017 – aims at benami shareholders, shoots everyone else but them
‘Shell companies’ have been in the news recently. On how monies are laundered, laws are avoided/evaded, benami properties are held, etc. through such companies. Curious is that even shares of these companies may be held benami, making it difficult to catch true culprits. There are laws to deal with benami holdings including the most prominent Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act, 1988...
Implications of SEBI (Intermediaries) (Amendment) Regulations, 2017
[Rishabh Chawla is a 5th year B.A., LL.B.(Hons.) Student, National Law Institute University in Bhopal] Introduction On May 26, 2008, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) notified the SEBI (Intermediaries) Regulations, 2008 (Regulations). They provide for a comprehensive regulation over all intermediaries on various requirements such as registration, code of conduct, procedure for...
Highlights of the Insolvency Amendment Bill, 2017
[Aayush Mitruka is a lawyer based in Delhi] In an attempt to debar certain unscrupulous promoters from regaining control over a distressed company, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (Code) was amended by way of a presidential ordinance in November 2017 (Ordinance). The new provision introduced rendered certain persons ineligible to be a resolution applicant. Much has been written and...
Public Depositors as Creditors under the Bankruptcy Code: A Matter Left Unsettled
[Shashank Chaddha and Deeksha Malik are fourth and fifth year students, respectively, at National Law Institute University, Bhopal. They can be reached at [email protected] or at [email protected].] Over the past few months, the orders of the adjudicating authorities under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (“Code”) have provided much needed jurisprudence on the new insolvency...
NCLT Kolkata Rules on Non-Defaulting Promoters
[Saurav Roy is a 4th-year student and Lisa Mishra a 3rd-year student at ILS Law College, Pune] The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Ordinance, 2017 (“the Ordinance”) was enacted to, among other things, override the actions of unscrupulous promoters who seek to buy back company assets at a throw-away price, as compared to what is actually owed to the lenders. However, the Ordinance did...
Exemptions to Wholly Owned Subsidiaries: Do they Call for a Revision?
[Shubham Sancheti is a 4th year B.A., LL.B. (Hons.) student at NALSAR University of Law in Hyderabad] The Securities and Exchange Board of India (“SEBI”) recently availed an opportunity to interpret regulation 37(6) of the SEBI (Listing Obligation and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015 (“LODR Regulations”). It provided an interesting yet contestable interpretation of the regulation...
Revisiting Arbitrability of Claims of Oppression and Mismanagement: A Singapore Perspective
[Aishwarya Singh is a 4th year student at Jindal Global Law School] The Bombay High Court (HC) in the case of Rakesh Malhotra v. Rajinder Kumar Malhotra (2014) had held that oppression and mismanagement claims are not arbitrable because the arbitral tribunal does not have the power to grant all the statutory reliefs available in a minority oppression claim. On the other hand, the Singapore Court...
Announcement: LL.M in Law & Development 2018 – Azim Premji University
[Announcement from Azim Premji University] Admissions for Azim Premji University’s one-year master’s programme in Law & Development (LL.M. in Law & Development) for the academic year 2018-2019 are now open! The LL.M in Law & Development is a unique, inter-disciplinary programme taught by internationally trained, reputed faculty to a select group of highly talented students carefully...
Can a Company ‘Selectively’ Reduce its Capital?
[Shikha Rawal is an Associate at a law firm in Mumbai. The views in this post are personal.] Over the years, several companies have increasingly resorted to selective capital reduction as a means of share capital management. A reduction of capital often involves the reduction of the same proportion of the shares of the company on similar terms and conditions offered to each shareholder whose...
Compulsory Amalgamation: the Bombay High Court on the FTIL-NSEL case
In 63 Moons Technologies Ltd. v. Union of India (and connected petitions), the Bombay High Court considered important questions of law going to the heart of Indian corporate law. The case involved a challenge to an order of the Central Government under s. 396 of the Companies Act, 1956. Purporting to act under s. 396, the Central Government had amalgamated the National Spot Exchange Ltd. (“NSEL”)...
Our Tenth Anniversary
Today marks the tenth anniversary of the IndiaCorpLaw Blog. The first post appeared on December 26, 2007. The Blog was launched with very little, or almost no, expectations as to its future. Surprisingly though, it has survived this long. That can be attributed to a number of factors: we have been fortunate to be joined by a wonderful team of collaborators and guest contributors to keep up the...
Call for Papers: NLS Business Law Review
[Announcement from the NLS Business Law Review] The NLS Business Law Review is an initiative by the National Law School of India University to recognise and foster academic research and scholarship in corporate and commercial law. The law review intends to examine the interface between the myriad regulatory frameworks that impact doing business in India, particularly in light of comparative...
Arbitrability of Fraud in India – Is Ayyasamy only about “Seriousness”?
[Shubham Jain and Prakshal Jain are V Year B.A., LL.B. (Hons.) students at National Law School of India University, Bangalore] Introduction The question of arbitrability of fraud in case of domestic seated arbitration in India was addressed by the Supreme Court in A. Ayyasamy v. A. Paramasivam (“Ayyasamy”). Ayyasamy has been subjected to much discussion and criticism here, here, here and here...
Bombay High Court Upholds the Constitutional Validity of RERA
Bhushan Shah & Neha Laxman are with Mansukhlal Hiralal & Company. The Supreme Court of India had transferred a series of writ petitions filed by developers and builders challenging the constitutional validity of certain provisions of the Real Estate Regulation and Development Act, 2016 (RERA or Act) to the Bombay High Court. On 6 December 2017, a division bench of the Bombay High Court...
Insolvency Code: Beneficial Proceedings Relating to Corporate Debtor outside the Scope of Moratorium
[Aayush Mitruka is a lawyer based in Delhi] The Delhi High Court’s ruling in the case of Power Grid Corporation of India Limited Jyoti Structures Limited (11 December 2017) assumes importance because it is one of the very few decisions interpreting section 14 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (Code) that deals with moratorium. In a significant outcome, the Court travelled beyond the...
Some Problems with Equalisation Levy
[Shantanu Lakhotia is a 4th year B.A., LL.B. (Hons.) student at Jindal Global Law School in Sonipat] A notification issued by the Government of India on 27 May 2016 provides for a 6% equalization levy to be withheld by Indian residents, as well as a foreign company having a permanent establishments in India, from business-to-business payments to a non-resident service provider for specified...
Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill: A Viable Project or a Doomed Battle?
[Malcolm Katrak is a Law Clerk to Justice (Retd.) S. N. Variava, Former Judge, Supreme Court of India] Recently, the Law Ministry affirmed the draft ‘Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill, 2017’, which gives powers to the Government to confiscate property of economic offenders and defaulters. This Bill flows from the Finance Minister’s budget speech promising legislative changes to confiscate the...
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