The Covid-19 pandemic is having an overwhelming impact on global order. These are testing times for nations. For India and for most other countries, the outbreak presents twin challenges, not only containing the virus spread, but also limiting the economic impact in an already slowing economy.

Threshold enhanced with force majeure awaited in Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code(IBC) due to COVID-19

In order to check the economical slowdown in the business, the Finance Minister on 24th March,2020 has announced various reliefs and relaxations in IBC due to the pandemic outburst of Covid-19 as below:

In order to protect the Corporate Debtor and its assets from liabilities for offences committed prior to the commencement of Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP), the President of India has on 28th of December 2019 promulgated an Ordinance – Insolvency and Bankruptcy (Amendment) Ordinance, 2019.

At the end of December, the Indian government promulgated the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Ordinance, 2019 (the “Ordinance”) to iron out certain issues faced by buyers of assets in a corporate insolvency resolution process (the “CIRP”).

While the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (the “Code”) has largely achieved its objectives, certain aspects of the Code have caused bottlenecks in the CIRP, which has, inter alia, deterred last-mile funding to distressed corporate debtors.

The Union Cabinet on December 11, 2019^[1] approved the amendment to the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (hereinafter referred to as ‘IBC’) and the same was introduced in the Lok Sabha on December 12, 2019. The amendment aims at streamlining issues of troubled companies, protect corporate debtors and prevent unnecessary revocation of insolvency proceedings under the IBC.

In the winter of 2015, the Indian Legislature sought to tackle the persistent problem of bad debts affecting Indian financial institutions and trade creditors by enacting the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (“Code”), which was finally notified in May 2016. The key purpose of the enactment was to consolidate and amend the laws relating to reorganization and insolvency resolution of corporate persons, partnership firms and individuals in a time bound manner for maximization of value of assets of such persons / entities. 

Prelude

India and the United Arab Emirates (‘UAE’) have witnessed dynamic bilateral relations in the recent past. Leadership of both countries have endeavoured to bolster ties of the two economies which has aligned India to achieve its insatiable ambition of emerging as a USD 5 trillion economy.

Key Highlights

I. Supreme Court: Scope of intervention by High Courts in cases of orders passed by the National Company Law Tribunal

II. Supreme Court: State legislature cannot enact law which affects the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court

III. Supreme Court: Difference between inadequacy of reasons in arbitral award and unintelligible awards

IV. NCLT: RP can take possession of a corporate debtor's assets which are subject matter of litigation to facilitate the corporate insolvency resolution process

THE ISSUE

In a recent judgment, i.e., on 17 January 2020, the Indian appellate insolvency tribunal, namely, the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) held in M. Ravindranath Reddy v. G. Kishan, that the lease of immovable property cannot be considered as supply of goods or rendering any services and therefore the due amount cannot fall within the definition of operational debt under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (Code).

Key Points:

No provision in the Code or insolvency regulations dictates that the bid of any Resolution Applicant has to match liquidation value of the estate of the Corporate Debtor. If the resolution plan has been approved by the Committee of Creditors by application of their commercial sense, as well as the plan has been considered as proper in terms of Section 30 of the Code, the Adjudicating Authority cannot interfere or re-assess the same under Section 31 of the said Code.