[Sridutt Mishra is a 4th year student and Apoorva Upadhyay a 3rd year student, both at the National Law University Odisha] The fear over the spread of Covid-19 has wreaked havoc on the global economy, with initial estimates suggesting an even worse impact than the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and the Great Depression. Central banks and securities regulators across countries such as India, the...
Can Covid-19 be Classified as a Valid Force Majeure Event?
[Anirudh Agrawal and Rishabh Sharma are 4th year BA.LL.B. (Hons.) students at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad] Since the widespread reporting of cases of the coronavirus, Covid-19, around the world, several countries have imposed travel bans, citizens have been quarantined and the infected persons have been isolated, all with a view to stop the proliferation of the virus. Amidst such an...
Covid 19: Consequences on Contractual Obligations
[Meenal Maheshwari is the lead transactional counsel at Essar Group] With the pandemic that has subsumed the world, a common question that corporates are dealing with is the impact of the coronavirus epidemic on already contracted obligations. The most relevant question raise is: at what point does Covid-19 pandemic allow a party to delay performance, not perform, renegotiate the existing terms...
Supreme Court’s Enunciation of Insurance Law in India
[Kamakshi Puri is a final year student at Jindal Global Law School] In a series of cases last year, a Supreme Court bench comprising Justice Dhananjaya Chandrachud and Justice Hemant Mehta delivered judgments on important aspects of insurance law. Oriental Insurance Company v Mahindra Construction, Life Insurance Corporation of India v Manish Gupta and Reliance Life Insurance Company Limited v...
The Travails of Teaching ‘Offer’ and ‘Acceptance’ in Contract Law
[Shivprasad Swaminathan is Professor at Jindal Global Law School where he teaches Jurisprudence and Contract law] A Heuristic Nightmare For a discipline that has been variously described as ‘showing itself in a mask’ (as Jeremy Bentham put it) or full of ‘chameleon-hued’ expressions (as Wesley Hohfeld put it), the law holds no dearth of labyrinths and traps for the unsuspecting student. Yet few...
India’s Approach to Liability of Hotels for Loss of Guest Property
[Pareekshit Bishnoi is an advocate based in Delhi] What are the legal consequences when a person visits a hotel and gives their car for valet parking, which is later reported as lost or damaged? In such cases of loss or damage from infra hospitium (meaning “within the hotel”), a question often arises as to the nature of liability of such hotel-owner or innkeeper. To determine the nature of...
Liability of Personal Guarantors vis a vis their Rights under the IBC: A Legal Conundrum
[Pinak Parikh is an Associate at Singhi & Co, Ahmedabad, and is a B.A L.L.B (Corp Hons) graduate (2019) from the Institute of Law, Nirma University] In December 2019, ArcelorMittal India Private Limited (“AMIPL”) paid over Rs. 42,000 crores to the State Bank of India to complete the acquisition of Essar Steel India Private Limited (“Essar Steel”), in what has been one of the biggest...
Severability of Arbitration Clauses when the Underlying Agreement is Void Ab Initio
[Ankit Kapoor is a II Year, B.A. L.L.B (Hons.) student at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore] Earlier last year, in Samyak Projects Private Limited v. Ansal Housing & Construction, a single judge of the Delhi High Court invalidated an arbitration clause as the underlying agreement was void ab initio. This represents a departure from the general rule of severability of...
SEBI’s Denial of Relief to Pledgees in the Karvy Case
We had last month discussed the ex parte ad interim order passed by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) wherein the regulator found that Karvy Stock Broking Limited (KSBL) had wrongfully pledged securities belonging to its clients to various lenders in exchange for funds borrowed. Since then, four lenders, (i) Bajaj Finance Limited, (ii) ICICI Bank Limited, (iii) HDFC Bank Limited...
Delhi High Court Upholds the Interests of Direct Sellers: A Ray of Hope?
[Deeksha Gabra is a chartered accountant and Shivam Gupta is a final-year law student at the Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab] Direct selling (also known as network marketing or multi-level marketing), as the name suggests, refers to selling products directly to the consumer in a non-retail environment. The product moves from the manufacturer to a direct sales company, which are...
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