On 31 July 2019, the Companies (Amendment) Act 2019 (Amendment) received assent of the President of India. We had written earlier on the ordinance promulgated on 2 November 2018 (Ordinance) to amend the Companies Act, 2013 (available here).
In view of stakeholder comments and in order to provide a diverse source of funds, reduce stress and ease the liquidity crisis for corporates in certain sectors, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has relaxed the restrictions relating to external commercial borrowings (ECB) vide its press release 2019-2020/285 dated 30 July 2019 and Circular RBI/2019-20/20 A.P. (DIR Series) Circular No. 04 (Circular).
Section 14 of the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code 2016 (as amended) (IBC) imposes a moratorium on the institution of suits or continuation of pending suits or proceedings against a corporate debtor undergoing Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) under the IBC.
The High Court of Bombay (Bombay High Court) in its recent decision in Rata Tata and Ors. v State of Maharashtra and Anr. (Criminal Writ Petition No. 1238 of 2019 decided on 22 July 2019) held that the contents of the special notice issued by a shareholder, whilst requisitioning an extra-ordinary general meeting for removal of a director, was not per se defamatory, as the shareholder was exercising its statutory rights.
Recently, a division bench of the Hon’ble Supreme Court (Supreme Court) comprising Justices R. Banumathi and A.S. Bopanna, in the case of Brahmani River Pellets Ltd v Kamachi Industries Ltd (Civil Appeal No. 5850 of 2019), examined the question of whether an arbitration agreement between two Indian parties, expressly stating the ‘venue’ of the arbitration, amounted to an exclusive jurisdiction clause for disputes under the agreement.
On 1 August 2019, the Goa Legislative Assembly passed the Factories (Goa Amendment) Bill, 2019 (Goa Bill), which can be accessed here. The Goa Bill introduces certain significant changes to the Factories Act, 1948 (Factories Act) as applicable to Goa, which are set out below:
On 25 July 2019, the Government of Telangana (Government) issued a notification (Notification) exempting all information technology enabled services (ITES) and information technology (IT) establishments in the state of Telangana from the coverage of sections 15, 16, 21, 23, 31 of the Telangana Shops and Establishments Act, 1988 (Act) for a period of 5 years with effect from 30 May 2018.
In the past few decades, with international trade and commerce on a rise, there has been a significant increase in commercial disputes amongst parties from different states. These transboundary disputes have led to the growth and evolution of the international legal regime.
Issues surrounding exclusive jurisdiction clauses have come up before Courts, time and again. Common questions that often arises in context of exclusive jurisdiction clauses include inter alia those pertaining to (i) the validity of such a clause in light of Section 28 of the Indian Contract Act 1872 (Contract Act) , (ii) the effect of such a clause on the writ jurisdiction of a High Court and (iii) the extent of the exclusivity of such exclusive jurisdiction clauses?
A significant development in its own right, the Code on Wages, 2019 (“Wages Code”) is an attempt by the Government of India to consolidate and simplify the existing multitude of labour laws in the country. The Wages Code will subsume and replace the following 4 labour statutes:
