[Guest post by Aishwarya Singh, IV Year B.A., LL.B. (Hons.), Jindal Global Law School] A recent post on this Blog had discussed the conundrum surrounding the applicability of the Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Act, 2015 (“Amendment Act”). The post discussed the conflicting judgements of High Courts regarding the applicability of the amendment to applications filed under section 34 of...
Holding Period and Corporate Veil in a Takeover Offer
[Guest post by Vaneesa Agrawal, who is Partner, Suvan Law Advisors. She can be reached at [email protected].] Last week Supreme Court of India issued a significant judgement in the matter of Laurel Energetics Pvt. Ltd. v. SEBI, Civil Appeal No. 5675 of 2017 on the issue of the interpretation of Regulation 10 of the SEBI (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulations, 2011...
Reprimand or Warning Orders by NCLT
[Guest post by Rohit Sharma, Executive at Vinod Kothari & Co.] Background UW International Training & Education Centre for Health Private Limited voluntarily filed an application before the National Company Law Tribunal (‘NCLT’) with respect to a matter pertaining to section 56(2)(a) of the Companies Act, 2013 (the ‘Act’) for transfer and transmission of securities. In this regard...
Supreme Court on Hardship vis-à-vis Frustration and Force Majeure
[This is a guest post contributed by Rishabh Raheja, a third year student at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad.] The Supreme Court was presented with the perfect opportunity to clarify the relationship between frustration, force majeure and hardship or commercial impracticability in its decision in Energy Watchdog v. Central Electricity Regulatory Authority. While it has already been...
Bombay High Court on the Permissibility of Shareholder Representative Suits
Bar & Bench yesterday reported that the Bombay High Court denied leave to certain shareholders of various Tata group companies to bring a representative suit that made certain legal claims in the aftermath of the ouster of Mr. Cyrus Mistry from the board of Tata Sons as well as other Tata group companies. The order of the court in Pramod Premchand Shah v. Rata Tata is now available. Facts and...
A Misturning on section 12(5) of the Arbitration Act?
A few days ago we had highlighted a decision of the Bombay High Court in DBM Geotechnics v. BPCL where the High Court had drawn a distinction between the power to nominate an arbitrator and the choice of the nominee. The arbitration clause allowed an employee of a company to nominate another employee as an arbitrator. The Court held that the power to nominate continued to remain valid even if...
Non-Disposal Undertaking and its Reporting in the Indian Securities Market
[Guest post by Divyajyot Verma, a student at the Jindal Global Law School] Non-Disposal Undertakings (or agreements) (“NDUs”) are signed usually by the debtor in favour of the lender in relation to any loan obligation undertaken by the debtor. An NDU helps in ensuring that the debtor does not transfer the shares held by it in a company by way of outside arrangements such that the creditor is left...
Guest Post: The McDermott Perplexity – the Scope of Interference under Section 34 of the Arbitration Act
[Guest post by Gursharan H Virk, who is an advocate practising in the Gujarat High Court. Views expressed are the author’s own.] There is a cleavage of opinion amongst various High Courts in relation to the scope and ambit of interference with an arbitral award under section 34 of the Arbitration...
Minimizing the Liability of Directors: SEBI’s Order in the Zylog Case
[Guest post by Amitabh Robin Singh, who is a corporate lawyer practising in Mumbai] Liability of directors is a sensitive topic in India, particularly for foreign investors who propose to nominate directors to the boards of their Indian investee companies. That is why clauses are inserted in shareholders’ agreements to the effect that the investor’s nominee director will not be identified...
Consolidation of Promoter Holdings: Exemptions from Takeover Offer
The SEBI (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulations, 2011 (the “Takeover Regulations”) provide for a series of exemptions involving consolidation of promoter shareholdings whereby acquirers of shares in such consolidation efforts need not make a mandatory takeover offer to acquire the shares of the remaining shareholders. Apart from specific promoter-oriented exemptions...
The amended Arbitration Act: The Power to Nominate and the Choice of the Nominee
The Bombay High Court in DBM Geotechnics v. Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. recently decided a short but important point arising out of the recent Amendments to the Arbitration & Conciliation Act, 1996. In particular, the Court had to consider how the bar on a party’s employees serving as arbitrators had to be construed. The relevant arbitration clause between the parties...
Promoter Exits in India: Reined by the Market Watchdog?
[Guest post by Malek Shipchandler, who practices law with a firm in Mumbai. Views are personal and do not necessarily represent those of the firm.] It was reported last week that the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) is likely to relax rules pertaining to promoter reclassification in listed companies. An article co-authored by Gaurav Malhotra and I for the Oxford Business Law Blog in...
Frustration in Indian Law
On this blog, we had previously looked at the judgment of the Supreme Court of India in Energy Watchdog v. CERC and connected appeals. An earlier post had examined the decision, and had concluded that the Court “arguably misstated the law when it found that the mere existence of a force majeure clause would prevent the parties from bringing an alternative claim under section 56….” The...
Applicability of the Doctrine of Corporate Veil to Societies
[Post by Munmi Phukon and Sagar Batra of Vinod Kothari & Company] Meaning of Corporation or Body Corporate Pursuant to Section 2(11) of the Companies Act, 2013 (CA, 2013), “body corporate” or “corporation” includes a company incorporated outside India, but does not include— (i) a co-operative society registered under any law relating to co-operative...
Intention of the Legislature Under Section 14A of the Income Tax Act, 1961
[Post by Akash Santosh Loya, 3rd year B.A. LL.B.(Hons.) student from National University of Advanced Legal Studies, Kochi.] In the case of Godrej Boyce & Manufacturing Ltd. v. Deputy Commissioner of Income Tax and Anr decided last month, the Supreme Court of India decided on the issue relating to the disallowance of expenditure under section 14A of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (the ‘Act’)...
A Closer Look at the Cross-Border Mergers Regime in India
[Post by Suprotik Das, a 5th year law student at the Jindal Global Law School, Sonepat, Haryana.] April 13, 2017 marked a momentous event in the cross-border merger regime in India with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs notifying section 234 of the Companies Act, 2013 as well as amendments to the Companies (Compromises, Arrangements and Amalgamations) Rules, 2016 in the form of Rule 25A. Read...
Call for Papers: Asian Journal of Comparative Law
[Announcement posted on behalf of the Asian Journal of Comaparative Law] The Asian Journal of Comparative Law (AsJCL) is the leading forum for research and discussion of the law and legal systems of Asia. It embraces work that is theoretical, empirical, socio-legal, doctrinal or comparative that relates to one or more Asian legal systems, as well as work that compares one or more Asian legal...
Arbitration Agreement and Piercing the Corporate Veil
When a company is a party to an agreement that is subject to arbitration, can the arbitration award be passed against a significant shareholder of such company? That would generally be possible only if either the shareholder has expressly or impliedly consented to be bound by the arbitration agreement, or if the corporate veil of the company can be pierced to impose liability on the shareholder...
The Impact of Demonetization on the Corporate Sector
Professors Dhammika Dharmapala and Vikramaditya S. Khanna have posted a working paper titled “Stock Market Reactions to India’s 2016 Demonetization: Implications for Tax Evasion, Corruption, and Financial Constraints”, the abstract of which is as follows: On November 8, 2016, the Indian government made a surprise announcement that certain currency notes (representing 86% of the currency...
Resolution Application by Operational Creditors: Interpretation of the Term “Dispute”
[Post by Nitu Poddar, Associate at Vinod Kothari & Company, Corporate Law and Resolution Division ([email protected]) Other posts on related topics can be found here and here.] To file an application under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (the Code), an operational creditor has to serve a demand notice on the corporate debtor ten days prior to the application. The corporate debtor...
Tata – Docomo Verdict: A Critical Analysis
[Post by Anurag Pareek, who is a Joint Partner at Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan (L&S). However, the views expressed herein are the author’s own, and not necessarily those of L&S. A related post on the topic can be found here.] Introduction Enforcing an arbitral award (the “Award”) issued by the London Court of Arbitration (“LCIA”), the Delhi High Court (the “Court”) on 20 April 2017...
NCLAT on the Definition of a “Dispute” Under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code
[Post by Shyam Pandya, who is a partner at Desai & Diwanji. Views are personal. Disclosure: The author represented the respondent in the matter, i.e., Mobilox Innovations Private Limited] In the context of a corporate insolvency resolution process initiated by an operational creditor against a corporate debtor under section 8 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (“IBC”), a corporate...
Geotagging: A New Way to Track Charged Assets
[Post by Rohit Sharma, who is an Executive at Vinod Kothari & Co. He can be reached at [email protected].] Notification The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) issued a notification dated 7 April 2017 introducing a new way to track down tangible assets on which charge has been created and registered with the Registrar of Companies (RoC). This is to be accomplished by geotagging the...
Force Majeure Clauses and Impossibility Under the Indian Contract Act
[Post by Isha Jain, who is a 4th year student at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. Other posts related to this topic are available here and here.] The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Energy Watchdog v. Central Electricity Regulatory Authority (“Adaní”) has obscured rather than clarified the law on contractual impossibility in India. The case was concerned with the...
A Proposal for Dealing With Force Majeure Clauses Under Contract Law
[Post by Siddharth Bajpai, who is a 4th year student at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. Other posts related to this topic are available here and here.] Introduction In 2013, Adani Enterprises entered into a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Gujarat Electricity Regulatory Commission and Haryana State Regulatory Commission. Under the terms of the arrangement, Adani was...
Recent Comments