Standard treatises on mergers & acquisitions (M&A) contain the usual benefits or rationale for why a company would take over another. These include growth, size, synergies, and so on. One of the significant benefits of takeovers could also be tax synergies such as setting off the losses of one company against the losses of another. Similar benefits may be available with respect to...
US Supreme Court Decision on Securities Fraud Actions
The US Supreme Court yesterday issued its opinion in a significant case that determines the state of the law on class actions for securities fraud. The background and the issue in question have been set out in the ruling as follows: Investors can recover damages in a private securities fraud action only if they prove that they relied on the defendant’s misrepresentation in deciding to buy or sell...
Delaware Standard for Controlled Company Mergers
Delaware courts have long been considering disputes pertaining to mergers between companies and their controlling shareholders. Not only do such mergers involve related party transactions but they are also used as a means to squeeze out the minority shareholders of the target who are cashed out as part of the merger. In one of the first decisions that permitted minority shareholders to bring...
Rajat Gupta Insider Trading Case: Appellate Decision
Last week, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued its opinion in United States of America v. Rajat K. Gupta, in which it upheld all the findings of the district court convicting Rajat Gupta on various counts of securities fraud. Although several questions were raised in the appeal relating to the robustness of the evidence in support of the conviction, the appellate...
Scope of a “Debenture”
The England and Wales Court of Appeal recently had occasion to consider the meaning and scope of the expression “debenture” in the context of a charge document. Consistent with some previous rulings of English Courts, the Court of Appeal provided a somewhat expansive definition of the expression “debenture” so as include within its fold a shareholder loan agreement. In Fons Hf v. Corporate Ltd...
Guest Post: Rights of MBS Bondholders Against the Company: Part 2
[The following post is contributed by Nidhi Bothra of Vinod Kothari & Company. The author may be contacted at [email protected] This is continuation of a previous post accessible here] Does a trust put complete cloak over the identity of beneficiaries? In the several rulings discussed in the preivous post, the privity of contract between the bondholders / debenture holders has been put...
Guest Post: Rights of MBS Bondholders against the Company: Part 1
[The following post is contributed by Nidhi Bothra of Vinod Kothari & Company. The author may be contacted at [email protected]] The financial crisis of 2007-08 led to several failed securitization transactions and brought in a storm of litigation in structured products.[1] Post the crisis, several bondholders sued the originators alleging misrepresentations on the quality of loans...
Miscellaneous
1. RBI Circular on Options We had carried two guest posts (here and here) on RBI’s notification dated 9 January 2014 relating to options and convertible instruments. This notification has generated a great deal of debate and its precise scope and contours are still being carefully ascertained. For a flavour of the further debate, the following...
Representations & Warranties: Limitation Period
The documentation package containing representations and warranties, covenants and indemnities are quite common in corporate transactions involving Indian companies, particularly those pertaining to acquisitions, investments and corporate finance. However, despite their popularity, they have not been the subject matter of judicial consideration so as to provide some guidance as to how they may be...
The Legalities of Bitcoin
The phenomenon of Bitcoin has taken the financial world by storm. A form of currency, although it came into existence only in 2009, it has increased exponentially both in usage and value. It has been said that the value of Bitcoin has appreciated by a whopping 5,000% in less than a year. This form of currency has gained momentum in India as well, as this report in the Mint suggests. US Court...
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