India

A U.S. judge refused to block a debt payment designed to free Byju’s from an insolvency case in India, telling American lenders to take their complaints about the transaction to a court in the home country of the educational tech firm, Bloomberg News reported. Bankruptcy Judge Brendan Shannon rejected a lender request to block Riju Ravindran, brother of Byju’s founder, from paying more than $19 million to India’s governing board for cricket. A deal to clear the debt enabled Byju’s to win dismissal of an insolvency case in front of a judicial tribunal in India.

The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) the regulator for bankruptcy proceedings in the country has issued 15 point guidelines to the committee of creditors (COC) while deciding insolvency cases with an aim to stem value erosion by curbing procedural delays and increase co-ordination among members, the Economic Times of India reported. The guidelines asks creditors to resolve any inter-se disputes between the members, particularly in relation to claims, preferably, through dialogue, or other non-adversarial means and avoid litigation.

India’s central bank left its policy rate unchanged, in an attempt to rein in relatively high inflation driven partly by elevated food prices, the Wall Street Journal reported. Reserve Bank of India Gov. Shaktikanta Das said Thursday that the monetary-policy committee decided to maintain its policy repo rate at 6.50%. He said that the committee will also remain focused on the withdrawal of accommodation.

The microfinance sector in India has clamoured for easy credit rating rules from banks for the micro lenders with less than Rs 500 crore portfolio so that these entities get adequate doses of bank loans to grow their businesses, the Economic Times of India reported. The small and medium sized micro lenders are gasping for bank loans as they don't get bank loans as easily as their bigger counterparts with minimum Rs 1000 crore portfolio, even as the sector grew by nearly 25% in FY24 to a cumulative portfolio of Rs 4.3 lakh crore.

U.S.-based Glas Trust is asking an Indian court to not quash insolvency proceedings for ed-tech giant Byju's as lenders the trust represents are owed $1 billion, posing a new challenge for the Indian startup that was once the nation's biggest, the Economic Times of India reported. Byju's was valued at $22 billion in 2022 before being hit with many setbacks including boardroom exits, an auditor resignation and a public spat with foreign investors over mismanagement. The company has denied any wrongdoing.

The founders of Byju’s have settled its Rs 158 crore payment arrears with the Indian cricket board, their counsel told the bankruptcy appellate tribunal Wednesday, as they sought to free the edtech firm from insolvency proceedings initiated on the sports body’s petition, the Economic Times of India reported. However, the Chennai bench of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) did not pass any order on Byju’s chief executive Byju Raveendran’s challenge to the insolvency proceedings, as a group of its U.S.

Byju’s is in talks to settle the dues it owes India’s cricket governing body, lawyers for both sides told a court Tuesday, raising the prospect that the online tutoring startup may resolve a key dispute and avert insolvency, Bloomberg News reported. Byju’s has “almost resolved” a dispute over unpaid fees to the Board of Control for Cricket in India and will pay “a certain tranche of the money” by this evening, Arun Kathpalia, a lawyer representing the edtech firm told the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal during a hearing.

Taking strong exception to slow action under the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code (IBC), govt has started monitoring the top 20 cases, while also asking bank chiefs to closely follow the top 20 cases with their banks, the Times of India reported. This has led to movement in Jaiprakash Associates and Amtek Auto, where lenders were seen to be dragging their feet. "Banks have been citing delays in the tribunal, but we discovered that they were themselves to blame.