Insights
In today's increasingly competitive corporate environment, businesses frequently operate through multiple shareholders whose commercial interests, investment objectives and expectations may differ significantly. While a company's constitutional documents establish the fundamental framework of corporate administration, a carefully structured Shareholders' Agreement ("SHA") provides a more comprehensive contractual mechanism for regulating the relationship between shareholders, protecting investment interests and establishing clear procedures for resolving disagreements.
Managing Employment Disputes Through Effective Workplace Policies Key Legal Principles and Strategic Compliance Considerations for Indian Businesses
In a significant development concerning the recruitment of entry-level judicial officers in India, the Supreme Court has modified its earlier decision that made three years of prior legal practice mandatory for candidates seeking appointment as Civil Judges (Junior Division). While the Court refused to reconsider the fundamental principle that a candidate should possess some exposure to the legal profession before entering judicial service, it substantially reduced the required period of active practice from three years to one year.
Competition is an essential component of a healthy and dynamic market economy. It encourages businesses to innovate, improve quality, offer competitive prices and develop better products and services. At the same time, businesses operating in India are required to ensure that their commercial strategies and market practices remain consistent with the applicable competition law framework.
The Supreme Court of India, in Ramkrishna Chauhan v. State of Uttar Pradesh &Anr., delivered an important ruling on the scope and applicability of Sections 3(1)(r) and 3(1)(s) of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (“SC/ST Act”).
In an important judgment concerning the evidentiary requirements in bribery prosecutions, the Supreme Court has acquitted a former Talati-cum-Mantri and a Peon attached to a Gram Panchayat, holding that mere recovery of a tainted currency note cannot, by itself, sustain a conviction under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (PC Act), when the prosecution fails to establish the foundational fact of demand of illegal gratification beyond reasonable doubt.
Joint ventures (“JVs”) have emerged as an important mechanism for businesses seeking to enter new markets, combine technological capabilities, access established distribution networks, share capital expenditure and leverage complementary commercial expertise. By bringing together two or more independent business entities, a joint venture can create substantial commercial value while enabling the participants to distribute investment, management responsibilities, operational risks and economic returns through a negotiated legal framework.
In today’s technology-driven commercial environment, intellectual property (“IP”) has evolved from being a conventional legal asset into a central component of enterprise value. Businesses increasingly derive substantial commercial value from software, mobile applications, websites, algorithms, databases, artificial intelligence (“AI”) models, digital content, domain names, trademarks, proprietary technologies, confidential business information and other intangible assets.In The New India Assurance Company Limited & Ors. v. M/S Louis Dreyfus Commodities India Pvt. Ltd., a Bench comprising Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh allowed the appeals filed by The New India Assurance Company Limited and set aside the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission's direction requiring the insurer to pay a fire-loss claim assessed by its own surveyor.
