United States (US) by way of a Presidential Proclamation dated 31 May 2019 has revoked, effective from 5 June 2019, the ‘beneficiary developing country’ status accorded to India under the ‘Generalised System of Preferences’ (GSP) since 1975. This move follows on the heels of the revocation of the preferential status for Turkey, sanctions placed on imports from Mexico and Canada and their subsequent roll-back.
On 16 July 2019, the Government of Punjab (Government) issued a notification (Notification) allowing all establishments to remain open for 24 hours on all 365 days of the year, up to 31 May 2020. The Notification exempts all establishments in Punjab from the provisions of Section 9 and Section 10(1) of the Punjab Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1958. The above-mentioned sections prescribe opening and closing hours of an establishment and declare Sunday as a closed day.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has observed that many statutory auditors of listed companies have abruptly resigned without completing their assignment for the year. Many a times, these resignations were sudden and the reasons were often vague, ranging from “pre-occupation” to “lack of adequate information from the company”. For example, in June 2019, Price Waterhouse & Co. resigned as the auditor of Reliance Capital and Reliance Home Finance, stating that they did not receive substantive responses to their queries.
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) recently published its order granting a conditional approval to the combination between Larsen & Toubro Limited (L&T), Schneider Electric India Private Limited (SEIPL) and MacRitchie Investments Pte. Ltd. (MacRitchie), which involves (Proposed Combination):
The division bench of the Supreme Court of India (Supreme Court) comprising of Hon’ble Mr Justice R F Nariman and Hon’ble Mr Justice Surya Kant, in its judgment dated 10 July 2019 in Gammon Engineers and Contractors Pvt Ltd v National Highways Authority of India, has inter alia held that if the parties to an arbitration have agreed to a fee schedule of arbitrators, then the arbitrators will be entitled to charge their fees in accordance with this agreed schedule and not in accordance with the Fourth Schedule of the Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Act, 2015.
The High Court of Delhi (High Court), in an important decision in CADD Systems and Services Private Limited v Competition Commission of India [Writ Petition (Civil) No 6661 of 2019)] dated 17 July 2019, has validated final orders (which are of adjudicatory nature) of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) passed in the absence of a judicial member.
The scope and ambit of the definition of an employee under the Employees Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 (EPF Act) has come up time and again before the Courts in India. This issue often arises in situations wherein workers engaged by an establishment are working from home or are being paid on a piece rate basis.
In a recent judgement, the Division Bench of the Delhi High Court (Court), decided on the two appeals filed by Bayer Corporation (Bayer) - one from the decision of the Learned Single Judge in a writ petition, filed by Bayer against the Natco Pharma Limited (Natco) (Bayer Corporation v Union of India & Ors, LPA No 359/2017)and the second, in a suit filed by Bayer against Alembic Chemicals Ltd (Alembic) (Bayer Intellectual Property GMBH & Anr v Alembic Pharmaceuticals Ltd, RFA(OS)(Comm) 6/2017)), both appeals involved identical issues pertaining to the interpretation of Secti
In a batch of writ petitions (Civil Writ Petition No. 2915/2019 and others), the Hon’ble Rajasthan High Court (High Court) has held that the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Amendment Act, 2016 (Amendment Act) is prospective in nature and cannot have retrospective effect (Judgment).
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) by its circular of 19 July 2019 (Circular) has standardised the reporting of violations of the code of conduct (Code) formulated by listed companies, intermediaries and fiduciaries under the SEBI (Prohibition of Insider Trading) Regulations, 2015 (Regulations).
