India

The Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed liquidation proceedings against beleaguered developer Jaypee Infratech Ltd., keeping homebuyers’ hopes alive of getting their properties, Bloomberg Quint reported. The apex court asked for status quo to continue in the insolvency resolution till june 15. Till this date, resolution professional Anuj Jain will continue to manage the company’s affairs. Within this timeframe, Jaiprakash Associates Ltd, the promoterfor Jaypee Infratech has been asked to deposit Rs 1,000 crore as a security against the claims of home buyers.

A member of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) said the current time limit to resolve insolvency cases was more than adequate, The Hindu reported. This assumes significance in light of demands for more time to resolve cases filed for bankruptcy. Currently, after a case is admitted in the National Company Law Tribunal, it has to be resolved within 180 days, failing which the company goes into liquidation. In exceptional cases, the NCLT may allow another 90 days for resolution.

Russia’s VTB Capital-led Numetal Mauritius Pvt Ltd. today told the company law appellate tribunal that it has offered over Rs 37,000 crore for Essar Steel Ltd. in the second round of bidding, Bloomberg Quint reported. The second round should be opened and the highest bidder selected from it, Numetal told the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal. ArcelorMittal, the only other bidder to have put in a bid for Essar Steel in the first round in February, however, opposed the opening of the second round of bids and sought only the first round of bids to be considered.

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s prospects for bailing out his younger brother’s phone company are fading after an Indian tribunal put his sibling’s Reliance Communications Ltd. into insolvency proceedings, which prohibit “connected persons” from acquiring assets of delinquent borrowers, Bloomberg News reported. Ambani is India’s richest man and the founder of upstart rival Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd., which had agreed in December to pay about $3.7 billion for airwaves, towers and fiber assets of the company known as RCom.

India’s bankruptcy court on Tuesday admitted an insolvency plea filed by Sweden’s Ericsson against Reliance Communications, potentially delaying the Indian firm’s plans to sell assets to lighten its debt load, Reuters reported. Ericsson, which signed a seven-year deal in 2014 to operate and manage Reliance Communications’ nationwide telecoms network, is seeking 11.55 billion rupees ($170 million) from the company and two of its subsidiaries.

Enron Corp. is long gone, but the scandal it left behind in India has beguiled the country’s lenders for almost two decades, Bloomberg News reported in a commentary. However, if the bankers who financed the U.S. energy company’s unviable power plant in Maharashtra state aren’t ruing that 2,000-megawatt debacle any more, it’s only because they’re now staring at a mess 20 times bigger. India’s total electricity-generation ability is 344,000 megawatts, a 72 percent increase over six years. The country, notorious for its outages, still doesn’t have a power surplus.

Vedanta on Monday said it had received the go-ahead from the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to acquire bankrupt Electrosteel Steels, Business Standard reported. “Vedanta (the company) has received the approval from the CCI for the application made by it for the acquisition of Electrosteel Steels,” the Indian unit of Vedanta Resources said in a filing to the BSE. In a tweet, the CCI said it found “no Appreciable Adverse Effect on Competition (AAEC) in respect of proposed acquisition of Electrosteel Steels by Vedanta”.

Disenchanted by the long-drawn-out proceedings for insolvency resolution cases filed against large borrowers that have failed to repay loans, many banks are planning to approach the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) for some succour, The Hindu Business Line reported.

Lakshadweep, a joint venture between Sudhir Valia-led Suraksha ARC and Dosti Realty, will look at “improving” its bid for Jaiprakash Infrastructure (JIL) if an opportunity is afforded to it, sources close to the development told FE. The firm has already conveyed its intent to the resolution professional and the lenders to the troubled real estate company, the sources added.

India’s new bankruptcy law is being bogged down by bitter court room disputes that include the likes of ArcelorMittal and the Tata Group -- jeopardizing the law’s promise of time-bound resolution in a country famous for its sluggish legal system, Bloomberg News reported. None of the 12 large debtor companies that the central bank forced into bankruptcy court in June have been sold yet. The National Company Law Tribunal or NCLT, in charge of the process, has extended a 270-day deadline enshrined in the law for Bhushan Power & Steel Ltd. and Essar Steel India Ltd.