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DOUBLE TROUBLE IN 2020 - TACKLING COVID-19 WHILE PROTECTING THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY

Background

Dire times call for ingenious, and often, radical measures. The COVID-19 pandemic, which has led to actions being taken under the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, and the Disaster Management Act, 2005, in India, is one such unprecedented and grim event. While governments and health workers all over the world are grappling to curb the spread of the virus, it has been realised that surveillance of affected persons is of paramount importance in order to assess and implement preventive and control measures.

Data tracking and analysis has emerged as an unlikely hero. This analysis has enabled governments to implement measures to stop the pandemic at its source and to prevent deaths, social disruption, unnatural burden on the healthcare system and economic loss. As government authorities are required to control the pandemic not only in their own country, but also understand how the same is evolving in other countries, governments all over the world have taken the stance that free flow of information that is updated in real time will allow for the formation of a steady global picture and help in curbing the spread of the pandemic.
Continue Reading Double Trouble in 2020 – Tackling COVID-19 while Protecting the Right to Privacy

Patent Licensing in times of Covid-19 Pandemic

The entire world has been grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic for some time now, and efforts are on to find a treatment protocol and vaccine. Several drugs and treatment therapies are being tried and tested to find a cure for this pandemic. In the middle of this fervent R&D activity, some questions come to mind — what about IP protection? How would companies commercialise a cure — if and when it is finally found? How would the cure be available to the public en-masse at affordable prices? Enter patent law and the aspect of Licencing.
Continue Reading To Protect or Not to Protect that is the Question : Patent Licensing in times of Covid-19 Pandemic

Debt capital markets - a bumpy road ahead

The novel coronavirus pandemic (“Covid-19”) has brought about a new set of challenges for the Indian economy. While our economy successfully weathered the 2008 financial crisis, the current scenario has halted economic activity for most of the sectors. While the reasons for the previous and current crises are different, some trends are similar. One of these is the inability of borrowers to service debt.

The 2008 financial crisis was characterised by defaults in various debt instruments such as term loans, external commercial borrowings and FCCBs. To combat this, the Reserve Bank of India introduced a host of measures such as relaxation on restructuring of various loan accounts[1] and allowance to firms to use rupee amounts to buy back FCCBs. Simultaneously, in order to create a vibrant market for corporate bonds[2], the Securities and Exchange Board of India introduced the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Issue and Listing of Debt Securities) Regulations, 2008 (the “SEBI ILDS Regulations”).
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FORCE MAJEURE IN THE TIMES OF COVID -19

The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in India has proven not only to be a humanitarian crisis, but also an economic crisis of an unprecedented scale. Specifically, restrictions on movement of persons and goods, save for those involved in essential services, have raised serious doubts on the ability of parties to perform their obligations under contracts when these are not ordinarily classified as ‘essential services’. Uncertainty as to the performance of contracts has led to parties envisaging breaches of contract and assessing their rights and remedies in relation to the same.
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FRUSTRATION (OF CONTRACT) IN THE TIME OF SARS-CoV-2

Overview

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the novel coronavirus disease a pandemic. On the same day, the Government of India imposed visa and other travel restrictions. Soon thereafter, many states in India declared a ‘lockdown’, an emergency measure [under the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 and the Disaster Management Act, 2005 (“Disaster Management Act”)] to prevent and contain the spread of SARS-CoV-2, and also issued prohibitory order(s) under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. A stricter lockdown was then imposed by the Central Government, which will presently remain in effect till May 3, 2020. During the lockdown, whilst certain commercial activities have been classified as essential and are permitted to continue operations, subject to following preventive measures (including social distancing), several others remain stalled and suspended.
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Reimagining the Good Times - Start-ups and the Covid-19 Crisis

In recent years, the start-up ecosystem in India has emerged as a reckoning force, largely due to efforts of stakeholders and initiatives implemented by the government to facilitate growth. Investments in start-ups surged from $550 million in 2010 to $14.5 billion in 2019.[1]

The Covid-19 pandemic has now adversely impacted the overall investment climate. While businesses across sectors have felt repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic, start-ups have been particularly vulnerable and are facing formidable challenges both from a business and operations perspective. Most start-ups have witnessed a decline in supply/demand, except those engaged in supply/delivery of ‘essential services’ and edu-tech/gaming/streaming services. However, despite this increased demand, glitches in the supply chain network have presented challenges. The start-up ecosystem has been striving to adapt to the present situation by focussing on the need to innovate and diversify.
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Covid-19 And M&A In India - Navigating Risks And Understanding Opportunities 

As the Covid-19 crisis deepens, and the number of positive cases and casualties continue to mount rapidly, governments across the world are enforcing stringent lockdown and social distancing measures. With the engines of economic growth grinding to a halt, the pandemic has mutated into an economic crisis, plunging the global economy into an unparalleled recession. India is no exception[1], and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in India is sure to sniffle, snuffle and sneeze, at least in the short-term. From a legal standpoint, we believe that there will be consequent changes and fundamental shifts in the M&A landscape.
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COVID-19 - Temporary Relaxations for Corporate Compliances

The global outbreak of coronavirus (COVID-19) is an unprecedented event that has led to lockdowns and unexpected restrictions on the public as well as the corporate sector across the world. In order to control its spread, the Government of India (GoI) has inter alia ordered all establishments, except organisations providing essential goods and services, to temporarily close their physical offices. Employees are working remotely, but due to difficulties faced in coordination and lack of office facilities, companies are likely to face difficulties in undertaking timely compliances of various applicable laws. Keeping in mind the aforesaid, the GoI has temporarily relaxed a number of compliance requirements for the corporate sector. We have analysed below some of the major relaxations from securities and companies law perspective.
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COVID 19 - Online Courts in India

Work from home for a litigating lawyer in India currently looks like endless hours of reading, chores and on-demand video. In this blog, we argue that this will be a short-lived state of affairs. Remote working for litigation will be operationalised soon and will become the new normal for litigating lawyers in the not too distant future.

Courts are an essential service for civil society. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, courts across the country have gone into an urgent-only, online-only mode with electronic filings, email mentions and, in exceptional cases, online hearings via video conferencing/ video calling facilities. This urgent only model of restricted judicial access is not sustainable past the initial lockdown. Courts will have to resume a full-time case load in the near future, albeit in a form that will be quite different from the way as we knew it. The urgent-only format will come to pass, with courts adopting the online-only format for its regular functioning. As a first step, the Supreme Court of India issued a suo-motu order yesterday setting out guidelines for courts to function through video conferencing during the COVID 19 Pandemic.
Continue Reading From the Gavel to the Click: COVID 19 poised to be the inflection point for Online Courts in India

COVID-19 - Impact on Real Estate

With a lot of disruption and backlog due to coronavirus, all industries, along with the real estate sector, have taken a massive hit. The year 2019 was not such a progressive year and everyone was counting on 2020 to recover and improve from last year’s lows. However, the real estate sector is in a deep standstill on the back of the global economic crisis, coupled with the COVID-19 situation.

This scenario calls for anyone to take precautions and due to restrictive movement because of the travel ban and the stock market crash, developers for one are not looking to take any chance in blocking their money in launching any new projects. At this point, one of the challenges being faced by them is the impact on contracts/agreements due to COVID-19, which are currently in motion/existence. The question being raised is whether the COVID-19 pandemic calls for a force majeure consideration in the existing contracts. Force majeure clause acts as a protection to parties wherein due to any unforeseen circumstances, either of the parties are unable to fulfil their commitment as per the agreed terms and conditions of the contract. To put it simply, due to any acts of god such as fire, flood, war, etc., parties are unable to perform their part as it is not reasonably within the control.
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