Corporate Law Cell Report 2017 – 18

The Corporate Law Cell, founded in September 2009, is a student run body overseen by faculty in-charge Mrs. Smita Sabne. The Cell, since its first academic year (2009 -2010) has grown by leaps and bounds.

The vision of the Corporate Law Cell for the academic year 2017-2018 was to familiarise the students with basic concepts of Corporate and Commercial Laws along with identifying and examining various issues under discussion in today’s corporate world. This year, the Cell intended to facilitate better comprehension of corporate laws among students through events, competitions etc. to supplement regular classroom learning experience.

The Corporate Cell’s day to day functioning in 2017-18 was managed by the following students- Parmeet Batra (V B.S.L, LLB), Yalini Ravi (V B.S.L, LLB), Vivek Hegde (V B.S.L, LLB), Amala Maria George (IV B.A, LLB), Stephanie Nazareth (IV B.A, LLB), Dhruv Tank (IV B.A, LLB), Nikhil Dubey (III B.A, LLB) and Shreya Choudhary (III B.A, LLB).

The activities undertaken by the Cell this year are-

Extempore Moot Court Competition- Edition V:

To identify and nourish advocacy skills among the students of ILS Law College especially in the arena of Corporate Laws, the Corporate Law Cell organised an Extempore Moot Court Competition on 29th August, 2017. The event attracted attention as it deviated from the traditional way of providing many days to students for working on a moot problem.

Saee Athalye, Sakshi Bumb, Kritika Shekhawat, Yash Bansal, Parmeet Batra, Amala George, Sharanya Shivaraman, Parvesh Baba, Madhura Bhandarkar, Riya Bramhe and Pragya Sharma drafted five moot problems for the competition based on Law of Contracts, Arbitration, Competition, Insurance and Securities Law while Mohith Gauri drafted the moot proposition for the finals on Competition Law.

The problems were released four hours before the preliminary round. There were 12 courtrooms comprising of 8-9 participants each and one student from every courtroom was to qualify for the final round. The finalists were expected to argue a new moot case which was released one hour before the final round of the competition. The format required students to analyse and prepare their arguments within this limited time frame. The competition was met with an enthusiastic response and saw a participation of more than 80 students from various batches. The preliminary round of the competition was judged by Vth B.S.L, LLB and IIIrd LLB students. The final round of the competition for was judged by Adv. Anirudha Joshi, Founder/ Partner at Juris Armor, Advocates and Solicitors.

The winners of the competition were:
1st position- Ziauddin Sherkar (IVth B.A, L.L.B)
2nd position- Alefiyah Shipchandler (IVth B.A, L.L.B)
3rd position- Vaibhav Chitlangia (IIIrd B.A, L.L.B)

The cell tried to incentivize enthusiastic participation from the students by giving away books as prizes to the winners. The winner, first runner up and second runner up received the following books as prizes- Law relating to Arbitration and Conciliation by P.C Markanda, Gower and Davies on Modern Principles of Company Law and Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code- 2016 and Concepts and Procedure by Jyoti Singh and Vishnu Shriram.

The participation from across batches was overwhelming. The judges were pleased with the standard of the competition. In light of such a wonderful response, the Cell plans to continue organising the Extempore Moot Court Competition in the coming years as well.

Regular Tuesday Sessions:

The Cell organised regular sessions every Tuesday. The sessions aimed to develop a comprehensive understanding of certain important concepts in different fields of corporate laws. The Cell endeavoured to cover one area of corporate law over two to three sessions every month. Every session saw an attendance of 20-25 students. Following fields of law were covered in the sessions-

• Company Law
  The Cell started its sessions this year by dealing with important concepts in company law. The first session for the semester covering the introduction to the basic concepts in Company Law was taken by Dhruv Tank and Shreya Choudhary. The session aimed at acquainting the students with a brief overview of the concepts in Company Law and relevant landmark judgments on the same. The second session saw an in depth discussion on the Oppression and Mismanagement provisions in the Companies Act and relevant case laws, it was taken by Vivek Hegde and Nikhil Dubey.
• Securities Law
  The sessions on Securities Law focussed on the introduction to Securities markets, intermediaries and trading mechanisms, and Capital Markets Instruments and the Securities Contracts and Regulation Act, 1956. The aforementioned topics were briefly covered by Yalini Ravi, Amala Maria George, Vivek Hegde and Srushti Shanbhag (III L.L.B) over two sessions providing students with a deep insight of the law and its application.
• Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code
  A session was conducted by Sharanya Shivaraman (IV B.A, LLB) on the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 in light of the Phadnis Finals Case. This session endeavoured to elucidate the basic concepts of the Code and explain the students how an IBC case could be argued before the Court.

  This session was followed by an enlightening guest lecture on the ‘Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code and Company Law’ by Ekta Chandan, an associate at J. Sagar Associates.

• Law on Arbitration
  A session on basics of Arbitration law to familiarise students with the concept of Alternate Dispute resolution and the basic provisions of the Act was taken by Vivek Hegde of (V BSL, LLB).The session also saw a discussion on the arbitrability of Oppression and Mismanagement claims.

  Another session was conducted by Pragya Sharma (IV B.A, LLB) on the Exit Rights of Minority investors in lieu of choosing Arbitration as the way for Dispute Resolution. The session aimed at covering the basic concepts as well as a discussing the latest cases relating to the types of Exit options, their enforcement in arbitration with a special focus on Put and Call option clauses.

• Deadly Internship Assignments:
  Following an inaugural session for the first year students, a workshop on deadly internship assignments was conducted. The aim of the workshop was to familiarise students with research techniques that could prove to be useful for them while working on internship assignments. Students were divided into six groups and each group was given a query based on varied commercial laws such as Contract Law, Company Law and Sale of Goods Act. Each group was required to give a presentation and prepare a note on the query given to them, identifying the issue, the provisions of law applicable and the legal position with respect to the issue. The time allotted for the exercise was 30 minutes. All the students who attended the session successfully prepared and presented a note.

Colloquium on the Contemporary Issues in the Financial Sector:

The first edition of the Colloquium which took place in 2016 was a grand success and attracted 300 students from various law schools across India. Inspired by this overwhelming response the Corporate Law Cell is scheduled to organize the 3rd edition of the Colloquium – ‘Colloquium 3.0.’ on 24th and 25th February 2018 in a more closed set up with 80 students, wherein, students got to directly interact with the esteemed speakers. The conference resulted in a very fruitful dialogue between the attendees and the best legal minds in the country.

The Cell in this academic year successfully organised various events and sessions which saw a good turnout and generated an appreciable interest in Corporate Laws.