NCLT sets the ball rolling on merger of Reliance's arm Viacom18 and Star India
National Company Law Tribunal has admitted the merger scheme between Reliance Industries Ltd's Viacom18, its wholly-owned subsidiary Digital18 and Walt Disney's Star India, marking the first step towards completion of the mega-merger deal.
In an order passed on May 7, a division bench of judicial member Kishore Vemulapalli and technical member Anu Jagmohan Singh directed the companies to convene a meeting of their secured and unsecured creditors to get approval for the merger scheme.
The tribunal has appointed retired Justice Suresh Chandrakant Gupte as chairperson for the meetings of secured and unsecured creditors of Viacom18 and unsecured creditors of Star India.
In the absence of Justice Gupte as chairperson, Naina Krishna Murthy, partner at Krishnamurthy & Co, will assume the role.
B Narsimhan, proprietor of BN Associates, has been appointed as scrutiniser for the meetings of creditors of the two companies. If Narsimhan is unable to serve as the scrutiniser, Venkataraman K will be appointed in his place.
It has also directed the companies to serve notices along with a copy of the merger scheme to the central government through the offices of the regional director (western region), Mumbai, the Registrar of Companies, the income tax authority, the goods & services tax authorities, the Competition Commission of India (CCI), the ministry of corporate affairs and other sectoral and regulatory authorities.
The bench stated that if authorities don't respond to notices within 30 days, it will be assumed that they
