[Vijay Rohan Krishna is pursuing his LLM (Corporate and Commercial Laws) at NUJS, Kolkata, and Sambhawi Sanghamitra is a 3rd year B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) student at CNLU, Patna] Ever since personal guarantors were made liable under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC) by way of the notification dated 15 November 2019, their rights and liabilities under the IBC have been extensively debated...
The Yes Bank – Zee Case: Settling the Discomfort around Letters of Comfort
[Debayan Gangopadhyay and Rashmi Birmole are final and penultimate year B.A., LL.B. students respectively at ILS Law College, Pune] Occasionally, a debtor’s residence in a different jurisdiction or lack of creditworthiness may attract concerns and reluctance on part of the creditor. What often follows is the need for additional credit support or a “quasi-security”. In this post, the authors deal...
NCLAT on the Treatment of Power Purchase Agreements in Liquidation
[Apoorva Soni is a III year B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) student at National University of Study and Research in Law, Ranchi] The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (“NCLAT”), by its decision in the matter of Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Ltd (GUVNL) v. Yes Bank Ltd dated October 20, 2020, held that a company could not terminate a Power Purchase Agreement (“PPA”) executed with a corporate debtor during...
E-contracts and E-signatures in a Post-Covid Era – Deficiencies in the Current Framework?
[Ayesha Bhattacharya is a graduate of the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata (Batch of 2019)] As the covid-19 pandemic continues to rage across the world, the corporate and the commercial factions of business have witnessed major disruptions. Most commercial negotiations rely on execution of documents in physical format and while start-ups and tech enabled businesses...
Litigation against Credit Rating Agencies: Delhi High Court Delineates the Scope
[Kajal Singh and Nikunj Maheshwari are 4th year law students at the Institute of Law, Nirma University, Ahmedabad.] Credit rating is a mechanism to address the asymmetry of information in the debt investment market, where the independent credit rating agencies (‘CRA’) rate the debt instruments issued by the borrower company (‘client’). Clients, to get their instruments rated, enter into an...
Force Majeure, Frustration and Impossibility: A Qualitative Empirical Analysis
[Smaran Shetty is a Senior Associate with Keystone Partners and Pranav Budihal is an LLM Candidate at the National University of Singapore] Force majeure has become a fairly common ground to avoid the performance of contractual obligations in a post Covid-19 world. In a time when lawyers and parties seek to examine their force majeure clause and reassess their contractual arrangements, we have...
Uber v Heller: Analysing How Indian Courts Have Interpreted “Unconscionable” Arbitration Agreements
[Yash More and Hitoishi Sarkar are II year students at Gujarat National Law University] On 26 June 2020, the Supreme Court of Canada in Uber Technologies Inc. v. Heller ruled on the validity of unconscionable arbitration clauses. The Court found two elements to determine the arbitration clauses’ unconscionability – inequality of bargaining power and improvidence of the arbitration...
Applicability of Force Majeure in Commercial Lease Agreements Amid Covid-19
[Sumit Kumar Gupta is a 4th year student at the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata] Covid-19 has unleashed an unprecedented economic crisis, and has brought with it a plethora of issues surrounding commercial lease agreements, as tenant associations increasingly seek waivers. The question whether the lockdown would entitle tenants a guarantee of waiver or claim...
Supreme Court on Liberal vs. Literal Interpretation of Contracts
[Paridhi Rastogi is 4th year B.Com. LLB (Hons.) student and Yagya Sharma a 4th year BA LLB (Hons.) student, both at the Institute of Law, Nirma University, Ahmedabad] On 11 May 2020, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court gave its verdict in South East Asia Marine Engineering and Constructions Ltd. (SEAMEC Limited) v. Oil India Limited while dealing with certain aspects of arbitration and...
COVID-19: A Material Adverse Change?
[Gaurang Mansinghka is a 4th year student at the Government Law College, Mumbai] The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted human life across the globe. Stalled economies, dwindling stock valuations, supply chain disruptions and projections by various organisations indicating a gloomy economic future show that the economic contagion is spreading as fast as the virus itself. This post attempts to answer...
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