The Venture Intelligence Blog

TIME FOR ACQUIHIRES TO TREND AGAIN? COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on all economies and businesses across the globe. While some of the businesses will sail through to see better times in the future, some will not. Specifically, smaller companies and startups at nascent stages may be handicapped with no funds or hope to recover. The rise in number of troubled companies may result in a lot of distress sale transactions soon. A distress sale can be structured in different ways – asset sale, share sale, slump sale, mergers or acquihire transactions. Some of the sectors have been positively affected by the prevalence of COVID-19; particularly, the ones driven by technology. The market leaders in tech sectors are in constant need for qualified and senior employees to expand their teams and launch varied products/services. So, it may be safe to say that the acquihire trend may well be back again and provide some respite to troubled companies.  An acquihire is where a company is being acquired...

Offset Obligations Under the Defence Acquisition Procedure 2020 The Defence Acquisition Procedure 2020 (“DAP”) released by the Ministry of Defence (“MoD”) on September 30, 2020 supersedes the Defence Procurement Policy 2016 with effect from October 1, 2020. All new defence acquisitions will be governed by DAP. However, if the Request for Proposals (“RFP”) has already been issued then the vendor will be governed by the defence procurement policy under which the RFP was issued. DAP has been introduced to ensure timely acquisition of military equipment, systems and platforms as required by the armed forces in terms of performance, capabilities, and quality standards, through optimum utilization of allocated budgetary resources. Key obligations including various amendments as introduced under DAP regarding the vendor’s offset obligations and the Indian Offset Partners (“IOPs”) are discussed hereunder: Offset Threshold and Offset Obligations: The offsets would be applicable for Buy (Global...

CONSIDERING LITIGATION IN INDIA |  PART V – APPROACHING THE CORRECT JUDICIAL FORUM! Introduction This article is in continuation to the series of earlier articles which deal with various aspects to bear in mind while seeking to litigate in India. In our past articles, we have discussed multiple key facets such as; the need to anticipate and strategize a dispute well in advance, the importance of facts in a dispute scenario, etc. While the above points are important, one cannot neglect another important aspect of litigation i.e., choosing the most appropriate forum for the proceedings. This plays a critical role to determine the course, cost, duration, direction etc., of the dispute.  Furthering commercial objective While litigation in India is usually long drawn and cumbersome, choosing the correct judicial forum may allow a relatively shorter time frame for achieving the desired settlement. A party can analyze the forum which provides the fastest dispute resolution, as oppose...