Taking in a pair of broken Reeboks turns out to be less than pleasant.

Hanging up my shoes

Business Standard

Companies in dire straits often roll the dice in a bid to stave off bankruptcy. The problem is that last-ditch efforts to raise new funds or restructure often come at the expense of bondholders. Struggling companies, their advisers and lenders should think twice about such strategies after an almost $700-million judgment last month against Citigroup Inc, Bank of America Corp, Wells Fargo &amp; Co and other lenders, in connection with the bankruptcy of home builder Tousa Inc.

David Reilly: Bondholders take revenge on fee-hungry bankers

Invest moderately in equities, and be ready to average down if market falls.

A practical strategy

In a recent article (October 19, 2009), Financial Times quoted Tim Adams, former under secretary for International Affairs at the US Treasury, as saying: &ldquo;The exchange rate is the tail on the dog. If you get the fundamentals right, the exchange rate will follow over time.

A V Rajwade: Managing G3 currencies

Fourteen people died in a stampede in Karachi on September 13 as they lined up to get free flour. That this took place in the affluent Karachi highlights the worsening economic situation.

Precarious Pakistan

The concept of conflict of interest in commercial jurisprudence is hogging the headlines. A judge of the Supreme Court has recused himself from adjudicating a high-profile corporate war since his daughter now works for a law firm that had been involved in scripting a document that the court would have to interpret.

Conflict of interest rules need to be clear

High turnover and high volatility characterised trading last week. The FIIs increased their derivatives exposure as the market made a U-turn in mid-week.

High volatility on the cards

As a business lawyer, one gets to participate and speak at various conferences. And while the underlying purpose is to network, one also continues to derive knowledge as I did last month in the Gateway Conference held in Delhi in the session on 'Safeguarding Investment by the Litigation Process'. A joint session between lawyers and accountants, the team from Grant Thornton provided a fascinating insight on the role of forensic accountancy in identifying, analysing and presenting electronic evidence.

Let litigation be the last resort

Early last week, the Mumbai revenue department issued show cause notices to Vodafone, proposing to tax offshore transaction, as a result of which Vodafone acquired a controlling interest in GSM licences from Hutch.

Vodafone tax saga (re)surfaces

A fine legal question has arisen which is whether a board's circular can make a classification prospective when legally it is retrospective. This has arisen because of a Supreme Court judgement in the case of Jai Fibres Ltd vs CCE, Mumbai &mdash; 2007(218)ELT484(SC) interpreting the retrospectivity of classification on the basis of a CBEC Circular No.54/12/91-CX.

Can CBEC classification be prospective when it is legally retrospective

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh flagged all the right issues and pressed all the right buttons inaugurating the India Economic Summit in New Delhi on Sunday. But his speech had more of what is already known and not enough of what he thinks he can do with the new political opportunity at hand. The whole world knows his government is committed to making economic growth socially inclusive and that we need political consensus to speed up governance and policy reform. The whole world also knows that India managed to come out of the trans-Atlantic financial crisis and the global economic slowdown less bruised than most others and that the economy is likely to grow at the long-term average growth rate of the past two decades, namely 6.5 per cent, rather than the impressive 9.0 per cent of the last half a decade.

India economic opportunity

A common thread runs through the political crisis in Karnataka and the investigations into the money-laundering by Jharkhand&rsquo;s former chief minister Madhu Koda. This is the rising influence of resource extracting contractors and other moneyed interests in national politics. The ancient regime of the &ldquo;Licence-Permit Raj&rdquo; was supposed to end the role of money power in politics. But India&rsquo;s unreformed party political funding system and the new opportunities for politicians to seek kickbacks from business interests have contributed to a snowballing of rent-seeking. Most political parties are guilty of contributing to this syndrome.

Mining political rents

The concept of Asia has ever been fluid and elusive, for outsiders as much as within the region. The Romans invented the name to refer to the lands beyond the Mediterranean explored by Alexander. Asia Minor, Rome&rsquo;s &ldquo;near abroad&rdquo;, is current day Anatolia in Turkey.

Suman Bery: India in Asia

Across the media and entertainment (M&amp;E) industry, the chorus against rising content costs has been growing louder. Radio operators are lobbying against royalty costs which could vary from 7 per cent to 40 per cent of revenues per station. Direct-to-home (DTH) operators have been talking for long about how content costs take away 40-60 per cent of revenues. Earlier this year, multiplex owners and film production companies had a two-month-long stand-off over revenue share.

Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: The chorus against content

But ask anyone from industry or the tax experts advising the finance ministry on implementing GST, you are likely to get a slightly different answer.

A K Bhattacharya: Who&#39;s batting for GST?

With all the media and public focus on Pakistan&rsquo;s political problems, few are paying attention to its economic woes. After five years of 6 per cent growth, the Pakistan economy has slumped to a 2 per cent rate of growth in 2008-09, making the country the region&rsquo;s worst performer.

Pakistan's slowdown

The &lsquo;strict liability&rsquo; insurance law suffered virtual death long before the recent IOC fire in Jaipur.

M J Antony: Mass disasters unlimited

Mumbai does not need to be &lsquo;de-congested&rsquo;, it needs to redeploy its eastern seaboard.

Sanjeev Sanyal: Rebuilding Mumbai for the 21st century

The only positive change visible in Indian cities indicating that policy and action to meet the urban challenge are moving in the right direction is the significant number of shiny, new low-floor buses funded by the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).

Subir Roy: Meeting the urban challenge effectively

While there is little doubt a Tobin tax increases the cost of investing, foreign portfolio investors will look at the overall costs and returns in India compared to that in other parts of the world.

'Does India need a Tobin tax?'

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh&rsquo;s assertion at the India Economic Summit that the futures market needs to be improved for better price discovery and regulation is well placed. For, this important function of futures trading is currently not being performed efficiently by the Indian commodity exchanges. Nor are the other key objectives of futures trading, such as price stability and hedging, being adequately served. As a result, both traders and investors are being denied the kind of guidance they look for from futures trading. While global commodity exchanges probably perform this role more competently, the price signals they transmit are often not of much value to Indian commodity sector players because the domestic commodities market is not yet fully integrated with the global market.

Fixing India's 'future'

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