NSE-SGX dispute: Bombay HC adjourns hearing till tomorrow

The Bombay High Court today deferred until tomorrow the hearing on a dispute between the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and the Singapore Exchange (SGX) over the latter's plan to launch Nifty-based products beginning this June.

Justice S J Kathawala had passed an interim order yesterday restraining the SGX from launching these new derivative contracts until further notice.

As the NSE has sought relief under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, the judge today expressed his wish to send the parties to a court-appointed arbitrator to resolve the dispute.

But lawyers for the SGX sought time to take instructions on the issue of refraining from acting upon its April 11 circular - which announced launch of new derivative products in June - until the dispute was resolved by the arbitrator.

The judge is expected to pass order - to send the matter for arbitration or decide it himself on merits - tomorrow after the SGX lawyers make their stand clear.

The NSE had approached the Bombay High Court yesterday through senior lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi.

Arguing that it had an intellectual property right over the Nifty benchmark, NSE sought that the SGX be restrained from going ahead with the launch starting June 4.

In February, the three Indian stock exchanges - Bombay Stock Exchange, NSE and Metropolitan Stock Exchange - had taken a decision to stop trading of derivative contracts based on Indian indices on overseas bourses.

However, on April 11, the SGX announced new India equity derivative products that will be based on settlement prices of Nifty futures contracts.

Derivatives are contracts between two or more parties whose value or prices are determined by the fluctuations of the underlying financial assets such as securities, bonds, currencies, stocks, or market indexes.