[Rhythm Buaria and Payal Chandra are advocates practicing before courts and tribunals in Delhi] Recently, a Single Judge of the Bombay High Court concluded, in Satyanarayan Bankatlal Malu v. Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India, that offences under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (“IBC”) can only be tried by the Metropolitan Magistrate or Judicial Magistrate First Class exercising...
Widening Chasm between Director Remuneration & ESG Investment in India
[Divyanshu Sharma is a 3rd Year BA LLB (Hons.) student at National Law University, Delhi] The debate regarding the disparity in director remuneration between professional and promoter-group directors has been reignited in a recent study conducted by Institutional Investor Advisory Services. The study has unearthed numerous instances wherein the remuneration granted to promoter CEOs in India is 50...
New Materiality Threshold for RPTs: Nagging Questions on Shareholder Approval
[Vinita Nair and Sikha Bansal are Partners at Vinod Kothari & Company, Practicing Company Secretaries] Related party transactions (RPTs) are perceived as potential tools for unjust enrichment of those in a fiduciary capacity. Hence, SEBI has recently revamped RPT norms (most of which are to take effect from 1 April 2022) intending to impose a greater scrutiny on RPTs. With the above, all...
A Comment on a Delhi High Court Ruling on Shareholder Derivative Actions
One of the age-old tenets of corporate law is the “proper plaintiff” rule laid down in the seminal case of Foss v Harbottle, (1843) 2 Hare 461. According to this rule, where a wrong has been done to a company, it is only the company and not an individual shareholder who may bring an action to seek redress. This represents a wholesome recognition of the separate legal personality of the company...
Bombay High Court Order in the Zee-Invesco Case: A Critical Analysis
Among the current wave of shareholder activism in Indian companies is the effort by Invesco, an investor in Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited, to replace members of the board of directors of Zee, including to remove the company’s managing director and CEO. In September, Invesco, which holds 17.88% of Zee’s equity shares, requisitioned the board to call for an extraordinary general meeting...
Directors’ Liability and Climate Risk in India
Climate change has garnered significant attention given that it poses a serious challenge to sustainable development. No longer is it merely within the domain of voluntary conduct on the part of corporations. Instead, it is a material financial risk that corporations encounter, thereby imposing duties on the boards of directors of corporations to recognise and address climate risk. In “Directors’...
Recourse to Appropriate Proceedings against Personal Guarantor of Corporate Debtor
[Akansha Uboveja is a fifth-year B.A., LL.B. (Hons.), student at Hidayatullah National Law University, in Raipur] Recently, the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) in Nitin Chandrakant Naik v. Sandhiya Industries LLP clarified the position of personal guarantors in corporate insolvency resolution proceedings (CRIP) initiated against a corporate debtor under the Insolvency and...
Retention of Title Clauses – An Indian Perspective
[Malavika Devaya is an associate at Poovayya & Co., Advocates & Solicitors.] A retention of title (ROT) clause is a provision that may be included in commercial contracts and purports to protect the seller’s interests by maintaining title to the goods with the seller until the occurrence of a future event, usually the receipt of payment. These clauses are, however, not very commonly...
Coverage of Future Misconduct under Oppression and Mismanagement
[Priya Garg is an Assistant Lecturer, OP Jindal Global University, Guest Faculty at NALSAR and Founding Trustee at The Corporate House and Saloni Kumari is a student research fellow at The Corporate House and law student at National Law University, Delhi] Recent corporate governance episodes have resulted in a greater invocation of the provisions under the Companies Act, 2013 (‘2013 Act’)...
The NCLAT Decision in Hystone Merchants: Conferring Unruly Discretion
[Shubhansh Thakur is a fourth-year student at the Symbiosis Law School, Noida. The author wants to thank Mr. Deepak Joshi for his comments on the draft version] The National Company Law Tribunal (“NCLAT”) in Hytone Merchants Pvt Ltd v. Satabadi Investments Consultants Pvt. Ltd. has held that the Adjudicating Authority (“AA”) can refuse to admit an application that is...
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