Blog Posts
-
DO CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES FALL UNDER THE AMBIT OF THE SECURITIZATION ACT?
[Posted by Venugopal Mahapatra] In an earlier post, it was reported that the Supreme Court had excluded cooperative societies from the purview of the RDB Act (Debt Recovery Tribunals). Recently, similar questions have been raised about the scope of the Securitization Act, 2002, and whether it covers co-operative societies. Unlike the RDB Act, which did…
-
Demystifying concepts and terms used in agreements
[Posted by Satyajit Gupta] My colleague, Daksh Trivedi has recently written an interesting article in The Mint, where he has discussed the various legal concepts/ terms used in shareholders and share purchase agreements. He begins with: Typical documents used for capturing terms of equity investments, that is, share-purchase agreements or shareholders’ agreements, are now complex…
-
Globalisation and the Indian Legal Sector
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] In what may perhaps be the first academic study in the field, Professor Jayanth Krishnan examines the issues that revolve around the opening up of the Indian legal sector to foreign law firms. In his paper Globetrotting Law Firms, which is the product of empirical study through fieldwork and interviews, Professor…
-
Independent Directors and Family-Owned Companies
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] I came across an interesting article Guests at the Table?: Independent Directors in Family-Influenced Public Companies by Professor Deborah DeMott. Although the article focuses primarily on U.S. law (where family-owned companies are more the exception than the rule), it does have a significant bearing on the Indian situation as well. In…
-
RTI and the Corporate Sector
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] The Right to Information Act, 2005 has been successful in inducing transparency in the decision-making process of the government. However, it has been reported, quoting the Chief Information Commissioner, that the there is a need for the concept of right to information (RTI) under the Act to be “directly applicable to…
-
A Recent Corporate Governance Survey
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] Business Standard reports a recent study by Grant Thornton-FICCI of corporate governance practices in Indian companies. The “India 101-500 CGR 2009 was designed to analyze corporate governance practices at ‘mid-market’ listed companies in India. The review methodology was based on a survey to gauge the nature and extent of corporate governance…
-
Partnerships and the Effects of Non-Registration: Section 69(2A) declared unconstitutional
[Posted by Mihir Naniwadekar] In a judgment delivered last week, V. Subramanium v. R. Rao (Civil Appeal 7438/2000; MANU/SC/0417/2009), the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a significant state amendment to the Partnership Act, 1932. Section 69 of the Partnership Act reads: 69. Effect of non-registration. (1) No suit to enforce a right arising from a contract…
-
FDI: Compulsorily Convertible Debentures
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] It is quite common for foreign investors to take up convertible instruments in Indian companies. These instruments are issued as either preference shares or debentures to begin with and are convertible into equity shares of the Indian company at a later date. The conversion may occur in one of two ways:…
-
National Law School of India Review: Symposium on Arbitration
[Posted by Mihir Naniwadekar] The National Law School of India Review will be holding its 2nd annual Symposium on 18th – 19th April, 2009. The theme of the Symposium is “Towards Unification: Perspectives on Investment and Commercial Arbitration”; and it is intended to cover international commercial arbitration as well as investment treaty arbitration. According to…