March 31, 2020
Future Group heaves a sigh of relief as Bombay HC restrains IDBI Trustee from selling pledged shares in Future group
[ by Legal Era News Network ]
The Future group heaved a sigh of relief as the Bombay high court on March 30, barred IDBI Trusteeship Services Ltd. from selling the pledged shares of Future Retail on behalf of UBS AG till 4 May.
After the shares of the company nosedived amidst the Covid19 pandemic because of the market volatility in the prevailing situation, the Bombay High Court order came as a saviour to Future Group.
Kishore Biyani-promoted Future Group companies – Future Corporate Resource (FCRPL) and Rural Fairprice Wholesale Ltd (RFWL) – filed petition in the court to restrain the trustee from invoking the pledged shares. The other respondents in the case are UBS AG’s London branch and IDBI Bank.
The counsels for Future Group pleaded in the court that if the shares are sold in the current situation, it will cause irreparable loss to the promoters and hence IDBI should refrain from selling the pledged shares until the next date of hearing.
Considering the current situation of the market and Covid-19, the Bombay High Court was of the opinion that FCRPL and RFWL required protection till the next date of hearing.
The Counsel for the Future Group argued that given the unforeseen situation, selling the pledged shares in these circumstances was unfair, disproportionate, commercially unreasonable and untenable in law or equity. They further said that this judgement would give a signal to the lenders to not resort to a knee jerk reaction and wait for things to settle down before invoking pledges.
Vikram Nankani, Somasekhar Sundaresan and Vineet Naik represented Future Group in the Bombay High Court. They were assisted by Naik Naik and Company.
Justice KK Tated passed the order.