Background Schemes of arrangement have been a useful method of implementing mergers and acquisitions in the Indian context. Historically under the Companies Act, 1956, schemes were supervised by the High Courts, but the Companies Act, 2013 conferred that jurisdiction upon the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). Under the regime set forth in the 1956 Act, the High Courts had adopted a largely...
Reclassification of Non-Compoundable Offences under the Companies Act, 2013: Impact on Section 203
[Radhika Parthasarathy is a 4th Year B.A. LL.B. (Business Law Honours) Student at National Law University, Jodhpur] Introduction The Committee to Review Offences under the Companies Act, 2013, was set up by the Ministry of Company Affairs in July 2018 to recommend the recategorization of acts that have been, for so long, cognizable offences under the Companies Act, 2013 [the “Act”]. The Report of...
Forum for Adjudicating Disputes Regarding Allotment of Shares
The issue of whether a civil court or the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has jurisdiction over disputes regarding allotment of shares in a company came up for consideration before the Delhi High Court in SAS Hospitality Pvt Ltd v Surya Constructions Pvt Ltd. In its order dated 16 October 2018, the Court found that the NCLT has exclusive jurisdiction over such a dispute. The plaintiff, SAS...
Impact Analysis of Committee Recommendations on Offences under the Companies Act
[Gaurav Pingle is a practising Company Secretary in Pune and can be reached at [email protected]] The Government of India had constituted a Committee to review the existing framework dealing with offences under the Companies Act, 2013 (‘Act’) and related matters. The Committee was also required to make recommendations to promote better corporate compliance. The Committee submitted its final...
Madras High Court Grants Reprieve to Disqualified Directors
The Madras High Court in Bhagavan Das Dhananjay Das v. Union of India (decided on 3 August 2018 and accessible via Judis) struck down the order of the Registrar of Companies, Chennai (“RoC) which had disqualified a number of directors from their position in various companies. The Court was considering a large group of writ petitions that various disqualified directors had filed before it. In...
NCLT Order Facilitates Cross-Breeding of Entities
[Pammy Jaiswal is a Partner at Vinod Kothari and Company] Background Earlier under the Companies Act, 1956 (the ‘Act, 1956’), sections 391 to 394 dealt with provisions relating to compromises, arrangements, amalgamation and reconstruction. The said provisions were re-cast under the Companies Act, 2013 (the ‘Act, 2013’) under sections 230 to 234. The statutory provisions under the Act, 2013 suffer...
Doctrine of ‘Reverse’ Piercing and the Jurisprudence of Indian Courts
[Debarshi Chakraborty is a 3rd year B.A., LL.B. student at National Law University Odisha.] The doctrine of ‘reverse’ piercing, although relatively new, is a controversial area of corporate law. This doctrine could be problematic given the situations where a body corporate has multiple shareholders. Conversely, there have been times even in relation to companies with one shareholder where it has...
Corporatisation Prospects for Unregistered Entities: Amendment to Section 366 of the Companies Act, 2013
[Pammy Jaiswal is a Partner at Vinod Kothari and Company] Background By virtue of the enforcement notification of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (‘MCA’) dated 5 July 2018, the proposed change under section 75 of the Companies (Amendment) Act, 2017 (‘Amendment Act’) relating to section 366 of the Companies Act, 2013 (‘Act, 2013’) has been notified with effect from 15 August 2018. Further, by...
Analysing the Change in Law Regarding Issuance of Sweat Equity Shares
[Vartika Tiwari is a 3rdYear student of National Law Institute University, Bhopal and is on the Editorial Board of NLIU Law Review] On 16 January 2016, the Government launched the “Startup India”campaign and ever since it has been making constant efforts to promote startups and make the country business friendly. There is no denying the fact that India has come a long way since then. In fact, it...
Revisiting “Sham” as a Ground for Piercing the Corporate Veil
[Ashwin Murthy and Sathvik Chandrasekhar are 4th year students from NALSAR University of Law] The doctrine of piercing the corporate veil was clarified in India with the landmark case of Balwant Rai Saluja v Air India (2013), recognising that the veil should rarely be lifted. Balwant directly relied upon the UK case of Prest v Petrodel which similarly narrowed the scope of such piercing (read...
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