NCLT concludes Arcelor plan hearing

Order to follow; seeks written submissions from all parties by Monday

The stage is set for a landmark order by the Bench here of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on approval or rejection of the ~42,000-crore takeover bid by ArcelorMittal of insolvent Essar Steel.

With the marathon hearing having concluded, on the bid and objections by several parties against it, the tribunal has reserved the matter for its order. Meantime, written submissions from all sides — including ArcelorMittal, the Committee of Creditors (CoC) and the Resolution Professional (RP) — have been invited by Monday.

Part of the original list of 12 major defaulters in which the corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) was initiated under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), the Essar Steel case has prolonged for 570 days. The hearing concluded on Thursday with the RP, CoC and ArcelorMittal making their final arguments and clarifying their stance on financial and legal concessions sought by the latter as part of its resolution plan.

The RP’s counsel told the bench of Harihar Chaturvedi and Manorama Kumari that ArcelorMittal’s bid had been verified and found to be compliant with the IBC rules and the October 2018 order of the Supreme Court (SC).

Seconding the RP, legal counsel for the CoC said the lenders’ panel had considered both Vedanta and ArcelorMittal’s bids on the basis of the SC’s order and found the latter’s bid the “best available plan”. ArcelorMittal’s counsel told the tribunal its bid had complied with all directions by the courts and the IBC norms and wasn’t its resolution plan contingent on certain concessions in terms of tax accrual and other items it had sought from the tribunal.