[Lavanya Pathak and Pallavi Mishra are advocates practicing at the Delhi High Court. This is a continuation from Part I] Position Taken by High Courts at Bombay, Delhi and Madras The recent judgements rendered by High Courts at Bombay, Delhi and Madras (discussed below) are instructive when it comes to offering clarity on the SC’s understanding of the law on liquidated damages and penalties. In...
Balancing Contractual Autonomy vis-à-vis Application of Section 74 of the Contract Act, 1872: Part I
[Lavanya Pathak and Pallavi Mishra are advocates practicing at the Delhi High Court.] The concept of ‘liquidated damages’ and ‘penalty’ was originally intended to be omitted from the realm of the Indian law by careful usage of the phrase “sum named in the contract” under section 74 of the Contract Act, 1872 (“Contract Act”). However, following the amendment brought about in 1899, the scope of...
Material Adverse Government Action (MAGA): Need for a PPP Framework in India
[Sri Janani S. is a 3rd year B.A., LL.B. (Hons.) student at National Law University, Jodhpur] In the recent years, public-private partnerships (“PPPs”) have been increasing manifold in India. The state is recognizing the private sector’s indispensable role in the infrastructure sector, urban water projects, healthcare and even in the development of electric vehicles. The Government is encouraging...
“Private Placement”: Syntactic Interpretation of a Financing Engagement Letter
Recently, the England and Wales High Court (Commercial Court) had the occasion in Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. v. Yes Bank Limited [2023] EWHC 745 (Comm) (31 March 2023) to consider contractual language in capital market transactions. While the contract itself was governed by English law, the ruling has implications on contractual interpretation more generally, in addition to its relevance to...
Promissory Estoppel Revisited: Comment on State of Jharkhand v. Brahmputra Metallics Ltd.
[Kaustav Saha is a Lecturer at Jindal Global Law School. His research interests include private law and legal theory.] The doctrine of promissory estoppel has had a somewhat unprincipled evolution in Indian law, particularly in its relation to the doctrine of consideration and, more pertinently to this post, in its role and character as a public law remedy. In this context, the case of State of...
Does the expression “charges” always include demurrage? Supreme Court answers in the negative
[Raghav Bhatia is an advocate, practising at the Supreme Court and Delhi High Court, and Mahima Tahiliani is a third-year law student at UPES Dehradun] Recently, in Food Corporation of India v. Abhijit Paul, the Supreme Court of India [‘SC’] has observed that the expression “charges” does not include demurrage ipso facto and the same has to be determined in light of the terms of contract between...
Government AI Procurement in India: Can WEF Guidelines Solve the Latency?
[Jishnu M Nair is a Senior Attorney at IBM] With a score of 63.67, India is at the 32nd position in the Government AI readiness Index 2022, issued by Oxford Insights. The index symbolizes that India is more policy-ready than Brazil and Greece, and less policy-ready than China and Malaysia. Although 32 might not be a desirable rank, for a developing nation to be in the first 25% of the countries...
‘Beneficial Owner’ is not a ‘Related Party’ under the IBC
[Tejas A. Jha is an Advocate, practicing in New Delhi] Recently, a major cause of concern has been highlighted by legal experts in regard to financial creditors seeking to invoke pledged shares in the corporate debtor. The concern is that when the said pledged shares are invoked, the financial creditor’s seat in the committee of creditors of the corporate debtor (“CoC”) may be put to challenge on...
Supreme Court on Pledge of Shares: Insider Trading Regulations May Require Review
[Vinita Nair is a Senior Partner at Vinod Kothari & Co.] Recently, in PTC India Financial Services Limited v. Venkateshwar Kari, the Supreme Court held that ‘beneficial ownership’ in the context of the Depositories Act should not be confused with beneficial ownership under general law as it is merely a procedural precondition to sale by the pledgee. Further, the Court found that there is no...
Supreme Court on Pledge of Shares: Takeover Regulations May Require Review
[Vinita Nair is a Senior Partner at Vinod Kothari & Co.] In PTC India Financial Services Limited v. Venkateshwar Kari, the Supreme Court of India brought out a very important distinction between the meaning of ‘beneficial owner’ under the depository legislation, and the right of the pledgee or security interest holder to cause the sale of goods pledged by pledgor in terms of the rights...
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