zee sony merger: Zee-Sony Merger: SAT to hear matter on June 26

SAT on Friday refused to provide any interim reduction to Essel Group chairman Subash Chandra and his son Punit Goenka after the markets regulator barred them from holding the place of a director or key managerial personnel in any listed firm or allegedly siphoning off funds of ZEEL. Following this, they challenged the Sebi order at SAT.

Sebi had said that the siphoning of funds seems to be a well-planned scheme since, in some cases, the layering of transactions concerned utilizing as many as 13 entities as pass-through entities inside a brief interval of two days solely.

The order got here after Sebi performed an examination within the wake of the resignation of two impartial administrators — Sunil Kumar and Neharika Vohra — of ZEEL in November 2019.

A fast take a look at how the current timeline of the difficulty:

• June 12: SEBI bars Chandra Goenka and Goenka from holding any directorship or KMP in any listed firm
• June 14: Chandra and Goenka moved the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) in opposition to SEBI order
• June 15: Zee promoters inform the SAT that the Sebi order can have repercussions on the Sony-Zee merger listening to earlier than NCLT
• June 16: SAT offers Sebi 48 hours to file a reply to a plea filed by ZEE promoters, difficult the regulator’s interim order
• June 18: Sebi informs SAT Chandra and Goenka had diverted public funds to personal entities, requires pressing motion
• June 18: Zee writes to Sebi, says ‘steady and repetitive’ investigations can influence merger with Sony

In a letter to the markets regulator SEBI, it mentioned that “steady and repetitive” investigations on the identical reason behind motion creates prejudice for the Firm and Shareholders, and might probably influence the merger course of.In a letter to SEBI, Zee mentioned, “please word that the mentioned merger is at a complicated stage publish receipt approvals from varied regulators (together with SEBI, Inventory Exchanges and CCI and so forth.) and the scheme can be authorised by 99.9 % of the fairness shareholders of ZEEL”.Zee mentioned it might even be famous that the transactions within the current matter pertain to the yr 2019 and an in depth rationalization has already been offered to Inventory Exchanges and SEBI.

“It’s past our comprehension as to why the current matter is being re-investigating/re-examining, when the reason for motion pertaining to the matter is round 4 years previous,” the corporate mentioned.

Information company IANS reported that Sony’s board of administrators is claimed to be sad with developments and is invoking drive majeure and materials hostile clause within the shareholder settlement within the proposed merger with Zee Leisure in India.

SEBI has given a No Objection Certificates (NOC) to the Composite Scheme of Merger within the matter of ZEEL and Sony Photos Networks India Pvt. Ltd. (Sony), which is likely one of the largest integrations of trade majors within the media trade and entails an incoming international direct funding of $1.7 billion (approx.) into India.