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.

Indian tycoon Vijay Mallya lost a U.K. lawsuit filed by Indian banks seeking to collect more than 1.15 billion pounds ($1.55 billion) amid allegations that he committed massive fraud. Judge Andrew Henshaw in London Tuesday said the lenders, including IDBI Bank Ltd., can enforce an Indian court ruling that relates to allegations that Mallya willfully defaulted on about $1.4 billion in debt for his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines Ltd, Bloomberg News reported. Henshaw also refused to overturn a worldwide order freezing Mallya’s assets. The 62-year-old is fighting numerous lawsuits in the U.K.

The wait for investors to acquire some of the $210 billion of stressed assets up for grabs in India is likely to get longer. That’s because creditors are afraid to take decisions, Bloomberg News reported. Current and former top bankers from at least four state-run lenders are under investigation for alleged impropriety over their lending decisions, while the Central Bureau of Investigation has started a preliminary inquiry into an alleged nexus between Videocon Chairman Venugopal Dhoot and the spouse of ICICI Bank Ltd. CEO Chanda Kochhar after ICICI extended credit to the conglomerate.

Companies referred to bankruptcy courts may not be allowed to leave the process once bids have been invited or a resolution plan has been accepted, The Economic Times reported. The government is considering setting a time limit for withdrawing cases admitted for insolvency resolution, ending ambiguity on a key aspect of the procedure. A 14-member law committee on the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code had recommended allowing retraction of applications if 90% of the creditors voted in favour of withdrawal. However, the panel had not specified a time limit for withdrawal of such cases.