I have posted a working paper titled “The Scheme of Arrangement as a Debt Restructuring Tool in India: Problems and Prospects” on SSRN, the abstract of which is as follows: The goal of this paper is to analyse the scheme of arrangement as a debt restructuring tool in India and the extent to which it has been utilised. It finds that the scheme has been used sparingly for debt restructuring in...
Shareholding Thresholds for Oppression and Class Actions
The Tata-Mistry episode has brought into focus the minimum shareholding threshold required for a minority shareholder to bring an action for oppression and mismanagement under sections 241 to 244 of the Companies Act, 2013. In a piece in Bloomberg Quint titled Minority Shareholder Protection as a Numbers Game, I examine the implications of such shareholding thresholds that operate as a filter...
The Potential for an Online Private Placement Platform in India
[Guest post by Rishi A, a 5th year at Hidayatullah National Law University, Chhattisgarh] The London Stock Exchange (LSE) has a program that it runs for small and medium scaled enterprises called the ELITE Programme. Providing services like professional advice from industry experts about value-creation and also assistance in issues relating to raising of funds, it requires the enterprises to (i)...
NCLT Rules on Maintainability in the Tata-Mistry Case
Background The action on the legal front in the Tata-Mistry episode has been playing out in the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) over the last few weeks. This is on account of an action for oppression and mismanagement initiated by two Mistry companies (the Mistry Group) that are shareholders of Tata Sons against the company as well as its directors and officers. The action was brought under...
Exemptions to companies operating from the IFSC
[The following guest post is contributed by Amitabh Robin Singh, who is a corporate lawyer practising in Mumbai.] Continuing with the Government’s efforts to promote the International Financial Services Centre (“IFSC“), the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (“MCA“) has issued notifications dated January 4, 2017, which provide an exemption from (or modify) certain...
NCLT Denies Itself the Power to Dispense With Meetings in an Amalgamation
Hitherto, schemes of arrangement were carried out under sections 391 to 394 of the Companies Act, 1956 and the jurisdiction for sanction of the schemes was exercised by the relevant High Court. At the initial stage, the role of the High Court was to call for the meetings of various classes of shareholders and creditors to seek their approval to the scheme. It had been common practice for High...
A Careless Concern for Workmen’s Dues: Insolvency Code of 2016
(The following guest post is contributed by Mridul Godha, a third-year student at the National Law University, Jodhpur) The Joint Committee on the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code of the Lok Sabha was much concerned about the welfare of workmen. “Workers are the nerve centre of the company. In the event of any company becoming insolvent or bankrupt, the workmen to get affected adversely and...
Appointment and Removal of Independent Directors: Need for Reform?
The removal this week by three Tata group companies of Mr. Nusli Wadia as an independent director from each of them has reinvigorated some of the debate surrounding board independence from a conceptual standpoint. This has provided critics of board independence with more fodder. In the past, there was anecdotal evidence that whenever there were disagreements between managements or promoters on...
Bombay High Court Clarifies Rights of Nominees in Shares
An intricate legal question that has befuddled various courts relates to the conflicts between the rights of nominees and those of successors in the case of ownership of various financial instruments, including shares of a company. As regards shares, the issue came to the fore in 2010 in the case of Harsha Nitin Kokate v. The Saraswat Co-operative Bank Limited (“Kokate”) wherein, after...
Repeal of SICA
[The following guest post is contributed by Mani Gupta, who is a partner at Sarthak Advocates & Solicitors, New Delhi. Views expressed here are personal and do not reflect the firm’s views.] By way of two notifications dated November 25, 2016 (“Repeal Notification”), the Ministry of Finance has appointed December 1, 2016 as the date on which the provisions of Sick Industrial Companies...
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