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Bharat Vasani

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Partner in the  General Corporate and TMT Practice at the Mumbai office of Cyril Amarchand Managaldas. Bharat has over 30 years of experience at senior management level. His areas of specialization includes company law, corporate and commercial laws, securities law, capital market, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, media & entertainment law, competition law, employment law and property matters. He heads firm’s media and entertainment law practice.  He is highly regarded in Government circles and in various industry organizations for his proactive approach on public policy issues. Bharat was a member of the Expert Committee appointed by the Government of India to revise the Companies Act, 2013.

Prior to joining the Firm, Bharat was the Group General Counsel of the Tata Group.  He has been at the helm of and steered several large key M&A transactions pursued by the Tata Group in the last 17 years.

Bharat’s contribution to the legal fraternity has been recognized by the Harvard Law School’s Award for Professional Excellence in 2016. Bharat has won several other national and international awards for his various achievements. He had a brilliant academic record in law and first rank holder in all India company secretary examination. He can be reached at bharat.vasani@cyrilshroff.com

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The Sri Lankan Bankruptcy Battle

International Monetary Fund (“IMF”) was founded in the aftermath of World War-II at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944 to establish a post-war financial order that would facilitate economic cooperation.[1] The IMF has the mandate of providing financial support mechanisms such as bailouts to member countries that are experiencing actual or potential macroeconomic problems. A balance of payments crisis is a huge macroeconomic imbalance. It is also called currency crisis. It occurs when a nation is unable to pay for essential imports or service its external debt payments. Since 2010, world financial markets have expressed recurrent concerns about risks to debt sustainability. This was fuelled by the COVID-19 pandemic wherein most stressed economies got pushed into a pandemic induced financial crisis, making IMF bailouts the go to short-term ‘solution’ for failing balance of payments.…

Continue Reading International Monetary Fund Bailouts: The Sri Lankan Bankruptcy Battle

Revised threshold of Rs. 1000 Crore for ‘material’ RPTs under LODR – Does it pass the Article 14 test

Background

SEBI[1] has recently revised the materiality threshold for obtaining shareholder approval for related party transactions (“RPTs”) under Regulation 23(1) of the SEBI (LODR) Regulations, 2015 (“LODR”), to cover RPTs that exceed INR 1000 crore or 10% of a listed entity’s annual consolidated turnover (as per the last audited financial statements), whichever is lower.

The revised materiality threshold has come into effect on April 1, 2022, and this change assumes significance, as prior to April 1, 2022, there was no absolute numerical threshold for RPTs that require shareholders’ approval.

This also raises the question as to whether an absolute numerical threshold of INR 1000 crore could potentially be considered as violative of Article 14 of the Indian Constitution.

In this post, the authors aim to probe deeper into this constitutional aspect and examine some of the arguments that can be made from both sides of the spectrum.…

Continue Reading Revised threshold of Rs. 1000 Crore for ‘material’ RPTs under LODR – Does it pass the Article 14 test?

Invesco v Zee

In a recent judgment pronounced in Invesco Developing Markets Fund v. Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited[1] (“Judgment”), on March 22, 2022, a Division Bench of the Bombay High Court (“BHC”) allowed Invesco’s appeal against a judgment dated October 26, 2021[2]. The October 26 judgment was passed by a Single Judge of the BHC (referred to hereinafter as the “Impugned Order”), which had granted an injunction restraining Invesco from calling for and holding an extraordinary general meeting (“EGM”) of Zee.…

Continue Reading Bombay High Court’s Judgment in Invesco v Zee– A major boost for shareholders’ rights in India

Information Rights of a Company Director

Background

The fiduciary duties of the directors of a company under the Companies Act, 2013 (“Act”) have been well-recognised in multiple landmark judgments, and in Section 166 of the Act.  Under Section 166(3), a director is required to exercise his duties with reasonable care, skill and diligence, and exercise “independent judgement”.…

Continue Reading Information Rights of a Company Director- Does our company law need a relook in the post-pandemic world?

Overseas Direct Investment

Background

Outbound investments in India have witnessed a significant decline from its peak in the golden period of 2005-08. As per the data collated by the Reserve Bank of India (“RBI”), in July 2011, the total outbound financial commitment was at USD 5,478.15 million. This figure has declined over the decade to USD 2,047.79 million in December 2021.…

Continue Reading RBI’s proposed regulatory architecture for the ODI Regime – Does it meet India Inc’s expectations?

JV Company’s Board

Background

The fiduciary relationship between a director and the company is among the foremost principles of company law, which was first enshrined by common law courts of equity. The Supreme Court of India (“SC”) first recognised this common law principle in its celebrated judgment in the Nanalal Zaver case[1], which noted that directors can be considered as “trustees” of the company, and “must exercise their powers for the benefit of the company and for that alone”.[2]…

Continue Reading Dilemma of a Nominee Director on the JV Company’s Board – Is there a conflict in his fiduciary duties?

Company Law

Introduction

For a company or a large corporate group, the outcome of a single litigation can be life changing, and may severely impact the interests of the promoters, the management, investors, and other stakeholders. Given the impact that even a single litigation can have on the life of a company, the lawmakers have been conscious of the fact that time is of the utmost essence in adjudicating company disputes.…

Continue Reading Zee v Invesco – Has Bombay High Court created parallel jurisdiction in company law matters?

Devas Antrix Case

Background

The recent judgment of the Supreme Court (“SC”) in Devas Multimedia Private Limited v. Antrix Corporation Limited[1] (“the Antrix case”) has many interesting facets. It brings to light some interesting questions of law on the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards and the Bilateral Investment Treaties when the claimant company (Decree holder) is ordered to be wound up (for the first time in India)  on the grounds of fraud, which is against the public policy of India and most jurisdictions that are signatories to the New York Convention.…

Continue Reading SC’s decision in the Devas Antrix Case: Does it dilute evidentiary value of the Auditor’s Report under the Companies Act?

Delegated Legislation

Background

Over the last few decades, there has been a trend where only a small fraction of law stems directly from ‘legislations’ passed by the Parliament. In the sphere of corporate law, the tendency of the law makers is to enact ‘bare-bone’ statutes such as the SEBI Act, 1992 (“SEBI Act”) and the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 (“FEMA”), and a bulk of the law is enacted by the designated regulators, such as the MCA, SEBI and RBI.…

Continue Reading The Rise & Rise of Delegated Legislation – Do we need more Safeguards?

Company Law

Background

The law on minority squeeze-out has not been a glorious chapter in the history of India’s company law. The Parliament, as a matter of legislative policy, appears to be uncomfortable with enacting a law that forces minority shareholders to compulsory sell their shares. The government perceives it as a kind of ‘expropriation’. Hence, despite Dr. JJ Irani Committee’s specific recommendation, our Parliament has adopted a conservative approach while providing majority shareholders with the mechanism to ‘buyout’ the shares held by the minority shareholders. Even after the ‘right to property’ was abolished as a fundamental right under our Constitution, law makers seem uncomfortable in giving such right to majority shareholders, and half-hearted attempts have been made to provide majority shareholders with the ability to fully own a company.…

Continue Reading Minority squeeze-out under our Company Law – Is it a legislative policy dilemma?