Tag: Company Law
-
The Supreme Court’s Judgment in the Reliance Dispute – Part I
[Posted by V. Niranjan] The Supreme Court’s judgment today in Reliance Natural Resources Ltd. [“RNRL”] v. Reliance Industries Ltd. [“RIL”] turns on several important propositions of corporate and contract law. It has been widely reported that RIL prevailed by a majority of 2:1. This is incorrect, for Justice Sudershan Reddy’s separate opinion concurred with the…
-
Characterising a Joint Venture
[Posted by V. Niranjan] A joint venture, perhaps one of the most widely used vehicles of commerce, is principally of two types – an incorporated joint venture [“IJV”] and an unincorporated joint venture [“UJV”]. The shares of the IJV are held by the members of the joint venture, in proportions that typically reflect their respective…
-
NLSIR Corporate Law and Corporate Governance Symposium: April 10 and 11, 2010
[Posted by V. Niranjan] The NLSIR Symposium, scheduled for 10 and 11 April at the NLS campus in Bangalore, will feature several important topics that we have discussed on the blog, including corporate governance, independent directors, tax planning, tax avoidance and adjudication of company disputes. The schedule for the symposium is indicated below. Readers interested…
-
A Rather Elusive Form of the Statutory Corporation
[Posted by V. Niranjan] Any discussion of the difference between a company and a statutory corporation seems, at first sight, unnecessary. It is, after all, settled law that a statutory corporation is an entity created by a statute, while a company is an entity that is governed by the provisions of a statute. This distinction,…
-
Event Announcement: 3rd NLSIR Symposium on Corporate Governance
[Posted by Mihir Naniwadekar] The National Law School of India Review (NLSIR), the flagship journal of the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, will be hosting the 3rd Annual NLSIR Symposium, ‘Indian Corporate Law and Corporate Governance: At the Crossroads’, in Bangalore, on 10th and 11th April, 2010. Extracts from the concept note for…
-
The Court of Appeal Reaffirms the Sanctity of the Corporate Form
[Posted by V. Niranjan] Few issues have proved to be more controversial than the strength of the principle that the company is a separate legal entity. The exceptions to the principle – commonly referred to as “lifting” or “piercing” the corporate veil – are both statutory and judge-made. The statutory exceptions are, in the main,…
-
Political Contributions by Companies
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court pronounced an important judgment in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission on the issue of political spending by corporations in elections. The New York Times has a summary: Overruling two important precedents about the First Amendment rights of corporations, a bitterly divided Supreme Court on…
-
Duties of an Official Liquiator: TCI Distribution v. OL
[Posted by Mihir Naniwadekar] I had previously posted on a decision of a Single Judge of the Madras High Court on the role and duties of an Official Liquidator. The facts in TCI Distribution Centres v. Official Liquidator (C.A. 1953/2008 in C.P. 526/2000) were that the Official Liquidator had sold certain properties through an auction-sale.…
-
From ‘Oppression’ to ‘Prejudice’?
[Posted by Mihir Naniwadekar] In this post, I had noted that the proposed Companies Bill appears to introduce some substantive changes in the law dealing with oppression (covered under Section 397 of the present Act). The proposed Companies Bill, 2009 states, in Section 212: “212. (1) Any member of a company who complains that— (a)…
-
Southern Technologies and Sticky Interest – Part II
[Posted by V. Niranjan] We discussed the recent decision of the Supreme Court in Southern Technologies that rejected a challenge to the constitutionality of ss. 36(1)(vii) and 43D of the Income Tax Act, 1961. The Court held that non-banking-financial institutions [“NBFC”] must account as income interest received from loans that are, for commercial purposes, bad…