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in India, mergers rarely involve a cash consideration and are usually pure share swaps given the tax neutrality available for pure share swap transactions in India. However, mergers comprise only a fraction of the M&A activity in India as companies usually prefer the ease of share purchase or asset purchase transactions.

On September 17, 2020, the Indian government issued a press note to inter alia liberalize the cap for foreign direct investment (“FDI”) in the defence sector from 49% to 74% under the automatic route and to revise certain conditions for FDI in this sector.  Additionally, on September 30, 2020, the Indian government rolled out the revised Defense Acquisition Procedure 2020 (the “DAP 2020”) to replace the erstwhile Defence Procurement Procedure 2016 (“DPP 2016”).  The DAP 2020 is the latest iteration of India’s defence procurement policy that seeks to promote domestic manufacturing through offset obligations in defence contracts.  In this note, we have discussed the key changes under the FDI regime for the defence sector as well as the DAP 2020.

N. Raja Sujith, Partner at Majmudar & Partners, and Sinjini Majmudar, Associate at Majmudar & Partners have authored a concise update describing in detail

India’s Central Board of Direct Taxes has issued Circular 17/2020 dated September 29, 2020 (effective October 1, 2020) (the “CBDT Circular”), providing important clarifications in respect of withholding tax on e-commerce transactions and tax collection at source on the sale of goods under the Income-tax Act, 1961 (the “IT Act”).

On November 15, 2019, the Indian government notified the commencement of Part III of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC), which provides for the insolvency resolution process for individuals and partnership firms.  The relevant provisions in so far as they relate to personal guarantors of corporate debtors came into force on December 1, 2019.  Pursuant to this notification, creditors are now permitted to initiate insolvency proceedings against a personal guarantor of a corporate debtor if the guarantor fails to honour its obligations despite a demand being raised. 

Introduction Letters of Comfort (LoC) have been issued by the promoters of various borrower companies to Indian banks, overseas branches of Indian banks and non-bank lenders. In many cases, these have been equated with guarantees. On August 19, 2020, the Bombay High Court dismissed an interim application by Yes Bank against Zee Entertainment Enterprise Limited…

COVID-19 is having an adverse effect on private equity and venture capital investments in India. As per industry reports and experts’ views, PE and VC investments in India may decline up to 60% in 2020 due to the pandemic. In 2019, PE and VC investment activities reached a record high at US$48 billion in India….

In the recent case of Yum Restaurants (Asia) Pte, the Delhi Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (Delhi Tribunal) has held that payments received by a Singapore company from an Indian group company towards salary reimbursement costs in the case of a seconded employee is not in the nature of “fees for technical services” and, therefore, not…

The SEBI has permitted stressed companies to undertake a preferential issue at a price, which is the average of the weekly high and low of the volume-weighted average price (‘VWAP’) of its equity shares during the preceding two (2) weeks. In order to be eligible to avail of the foregoing relaxation, a stressed company must…

After the nationwide lockdown was imposed in the third week of March, India’s Securities and Exchange Board of India (the “SEBI”) has been quick-thinking in introducing a slew of relaxations for the securities market with a focus to lessen the burden of listed companies and market intermediaries. In this update, we analyze the key measures…