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Cabinet Nod for Out-of-court Dispute Resolution for PSUs The Cabinet approved a mechanism within the government for speedy resolution of commercial disputes of central public sector enterprises without cases going to courts. A new two-tier mechanism will be put in place of the existing Permanent Machinery of Arbitration mechanism to resolve such commercial disputes. At the first level (tier), a committee comprising of secretaries of the relevant administrative and secretary department of legal affairs will look at the dispute.At the second level (tier), in case the dispute remains unresolved, it will be referred to the Cabinet Secretary, whose decision will be final and binding on all concerned. For the prompt disposal of disputes, a time schedule of 3 months at the first level has been prescribed. The government said it would reduce “the number of litigations regarding commercial disputes in Court of Law and also avoid wastage of public money. Among other decisions, the Cabi...

India May Not Reach Clean Energy Target’ Safeguard duty doubts, weak distributor financials: Survey India could fall short of its target of adding 175 GW of clean energy by the end of 2022 due to uncertainty around safeguard duty and weak financial position of power distributors, a survey by renewable energy consultancy firm Bridge to India shows. The survey, which covered top executives of over 40 Indian and international companies, also points to prospects for domestic solar manufacturing remaining bleak, which could cap growth of India’s total integrated module manufacturing capacity at below 3 GW by 2022. “India is expected to add total solar and wind capacity of 66 GW and 52 GW by March 2022, 66% and 87%, respectively, of the targets set by the government,” said the RE CEO Survey 2018, which was shared exclusively with ET.Clean energy players including Hero Future Energies, Engie, Aditya Birla Group, Sembcorp, Azure Power, Trina Solar, Schneider Electric and Larsen &...

Over 1,600 merger cases pile up before NCLT as insolvency takes precedence Sources say the time taken by the tribunal to approve mergers is more than what high courts used to take With the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) gaining precedence before the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), merger and amalgamation cases are beginning to pile up before the quasi-judicial body set up to fast-track issues related to domestic corporates. Industry players say several companies, particularly small- and medium-sized, which had requisitioned for approval of mergers, have been facing challenges as the Bench is preoccupied with IBC cases. Some of these firms are said to have approached market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India and Ministry of Corporate Affairs seeking an intervention. Earlier, companies had to approach high courts to seek approval for any merger or scheme of arrangement. Now, the NCLT is the judicial body for approving such schemes. The rationale ...