Kavitha Gupta's blog

Every breach not justifiable merely on invocation of COVID-19 as a force majeure Lakshmikumaran & Sridhara India   June 15 2020 The Delhi High Court has recently held that every breach or non-performance cannot be justified or excused merely on the invocation of COVID-19 as a  force majeure  condition. The High Court was of the view that it would have to assess the conduct of the parties prior to the outbreak, the deadlines that were imposed in the contract, the steps that were to be taken, the various compliances that were required to be made and only then assess as to whether, genuinely, a party was prevented or is able to justify its non-performance due to the pandemic. Observing that the parties ought to be compelled to adhere to contractual terms and conditions and excusing non-performance would be only in exceptional situations, the Court in the case of  Halliburton Offshore Services v. Vedanta Limited  reiterated that a  force ...

E-signatures: flexibility in cross-border transactions Newsletters October 11 2016 | Contributed by Harney Westwood & Riegels Introduction Electronic signatures (e-signatures) provide flexibility and efficiency in cross-border transactions, are virtually accessible from anywhere in the world and, given the advancements in digital signature technology, provide arguably greater security than scanning and emailing wet signatures. On July 1 2016 the European Union's legal framework for e-signatures came into effect via the eIDAS Regulation. (1) In comparison, the British Virgin Islands (BVI) passed similar legislation 15 years ago and was one of the first jurisdictions to recognise the validity of e-signatures and electronic records. The BVI Electronic Transactions Act 2001 sets out the requirements for a legally binding e-signature under BVI law. This recognition of e-signatures along with other BVI statutory developments (eg, simplified requirements for th...

Alibaba Looks More Like GE than Google Walter Frick May 14, 2014 Alibaba, the Chinese internet titan that filed for an IPO in the U.S. last week, could be the largest tech IPO in history. But Alibaba doesn’t look much like Facebook, Google, or even Amazon. Instead, it operates more like GE. Spanning e-commerce, payments, messaging, business software, entertainment, and more , Alibaba looks a lot like a conglomerate. And it sets strategy like one, according to a Harvard Business School case study by professor Julie Wulf. Competition trumps cooperation, and distributed decision-making by individual business units trumps universal strategy. With its success, Alibaba and its founder Jack Ma are making the case for a strategy approach that has fallen out of favor in the U.S. As the 2010 case describes: By his own admission, Ma was a fan of Jack Welch, so it was only natural that his organization came to resemble that of GE in some regards. Just as Welch did not ...

CCI rejects complaints against Flipkart, Snapdeal and other e-retail majors New Delhi:  The Competition Commission has rejected allegations of unfair business practices against five online retail majors -- Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon, Jabong and Myntra -- as it did not find any prima facie evidence of violations. The complaints were filed against Flipkart India Pvt Ltd, Jasper Infotech Pvt Ltd, Xerion Retail Pvt Ltd, Amazon Seller Services Pvt Ltd and Vector E-commerce Pvt Ltd. After looking into the matter for the past few months, the fair trade regulator has ruled that these entities did not violate competition norms by indulging in cartelisation or by abusing their dominant position. Jasper runs Snapdeal.com, Xerion owns Jabong.com, while Vector is the company behind Myntra.com. Myntra has been acquired by Flipkart.com "... the Commission is of the prima facie view that no case of contravention of the provisions of either section 3 or section 4 of the Act is made...