NCLAT to hear Triveni Turbines plea on Nov 19; interim order to continue

The NCLT will hear the plea filed by Triveni Turbines against its JV Partner GE on November 19, and said the US firm will continue to provide technical and other assistance to their joint venture company GETL until its further order.

The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) will hear the plea on November 19.

Earlier on August 27, the NCLAT had allowed General Electric (GE) to sell a controlling stake in its step-down subsidiary Baker Hughes LLC.

Triveni Turbine is opposing transferring of GE's shareholding in Baker Hughes as it believes that it would have impact on GETL as it would neither have access to technology nor the marketing assistance.

The appellate tribunal said: "Until further order, the interim order passed on August 27 shall continue".

A three-member NCLAT bench headed by Chairperson Justice S J Mukhopadhaya has asked the parties to complete their pleadings within one week as some of them has not filed their replies.

The appellate tribunal has also said Triveni Turbine may file its rejoinder, if any, by October 15.

The NCLAT also said that pendency of appeal before it would not come in the hearing of the main matter, which is scheduled to come up for hearing tomorrow at the Bengaluru bench of the National Company Law Tribunal.

"However, pendency of these appeals will not come in the way of NCLT Bangaluru to proceed with the Company Petition on merit subject to the decision of this appeal," it said.

The NCLAT order further said that such sale "should not affect all the five agreements entered into among parties" as referred to in their undertaking before the NCLT.

The agreements are related to marketing and sales, technology licence, trade and trade name, service legal agreement and ancillary agreements to the joint venture, as per the undertaking given by the foreign companies before the Benagluru bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).

The NCLAT order came over two petitions filed by Triveni Turbine, which had challenged the August 23, 2019 interim order passed by the NCLT, vacating its earlier order of June 12 and deleting GE from the name of parties.

It had said that such sales should not affect the business of Triveni Turbine Ltd and its JV firm GE Triveni Ltd (GETL).

Triveni has alleged the US company had perpetrated "fraudulent, prejudicial, harsh, oppressive, burdensome and wrongful acts", which has hurt the its business interest of the JV.

The JV will lose GE brand, which was promised by them, Triveni Turbine said.

GETL offers a portfolio of steam turbine products of 30 MW to 100MW in the Industrial Power Generation (IPG) market globally.