e  NEWSLETTER

INDIA JURIS

Advocates & Corporate Legal Consultants

Trademark & Patent Attorneys

A Full Service Law Firm

Tel:+91-120- 6567067 Fax: +91-120-2776538

http://www.indiajuris.com/

Areas of Practice  -  Corporate  Commercial  M&A  JV  Takeovers  Foreign Investments   Litigation   Arbitration   Patent   Trade Mark  Design  Copyright    INDUSTRIES  -  IT  Telecommunications  Biotechnology  Infrastructure   Automobile   Real Estate   Shipping   Banking   Finance       OFFICES   New Delhi    Mumbai   New York

This E-Newsletter has been published by India Juris, full service Indian law firm with special expertise in Business, Corporate & IP laws, on requests from clients and associates worldwide with an object to keep them abreast of latest legal & business developments in India.

 Contents 

*    Liberalization - remittance for purchase of trademark or franchise in India

*    Liberalization - ceiling on Overseas Investments by Mutual Funds Enhanced

Intellectual Property Cases

*    The Scotch Whisky Association, William Grant and Sons Ltd., William Grant and Sons International Ltd. and William Grant and Sons Distillers Ltd.  vs   Golden Bottling Ltd

In terms of Rule 5 of the Foreign Exchange Management (Current Account Transactions) Rules, 2000, prior approval of the Reserve Bank is required for drawing foreign exchange "for remittance for purchase of trademark or franchise in India". With a view to liberalizing the procedure further and providing greater flexibility, in the Foreign Exchange Management (Current Account Transaction) Rules, 2000, henceforth, banks (AD Category-1) are allowed to permit drawal of foreign exchange by person for purchase of trademark or franchise in India without approval of the Reserve Bank.

With a view to providing greater opportunity to invest overseas, the extant ceiling on overseas investments by Mutual Funds, registered with Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), have been enhanced. Accordingly, the aggregate ceiling for overseas investment by Mutual Funds, registered with SEBI, is increased from USD 2 billion to USD 3 billion with immediate effect. All other terms and conditions and operational guidelines as issued by SEBI will remain unchanged.

At present in India, corporates can avail ECB (foreign loans) up to USD 500 million during a financial year under Automatic Route with minimum average maturity period of 5 years. With a view to liberalising the ECB guidelines, it has been decided that henceforth (4th December 06 onwards), corporates can avail ECB of an additional amount of USD 250 million with average maturity of more than 10 years under the approval route, over and above the existing limit of USD 500 million under the automatic route, during a financial year. Other ECB criteria such as end-use, all-in-cost ceiling, recognised lender, etc. need to be complied with. Prepayment and call/put options, however, would not be permissible for such ECB up to a period of 10 years.

Further, with a view to providing greater flexibility to the corporates in managing their liquidity and interest costs, prepayment of ECB up to USD 300 million, as against the existing limit of USD 200 million, will be allowed by AD Category - I banks without prior approval of the Reserve Bank subject to compliance with the minimum average maturity period as applicable to the loan.

Intellectual Property Cases

The plaintiffs have filed suit for a permanent injunction to restrain the Defendant to deal with whisky under the name of ‘Red Scot’. The purpose of referring to the Scotch Whisky Act and the Scotch Whisky Order is to show that even in Scotland all whisky’s that are produced need not necessarily fall within the definition of Scotch whisky. The plaintiffs state that they got to know that the defendant was manufacturing as well selling their ‘Red Scot’ which gave an impression that it is Scotch whisky. The plaintiffs then sent them a legal notice asking them not to use the word ‘Scot’. The plaintiffs realized that the red Scot was not available in the market. But, later on after some time they realized that it was being sold again. The plaintiffs submitted that under the WTO TRIPS Agreement, protection is provided for geographical indications in terms of Article 22 thereof. Article 22.1 defines geographical indications as indications, which identify a good as originating in the territory of a Member, or a region or locality in that territory, where a given quality, reputation or other characteristic of the good is essentially attributable to its geographical origin. Finally in terms of section 67 of the geographical Indications Act the plaintiffs have prayed for damages. Court held that the plaintiffs are entitled to damages in furtherance of section 67 of the Act to the tune of INR 5,00,000/- and will also be entitled to costs during litigation

Chennai - chennai@indiajuris.com       Mumbai -   mumbai@indiajuris.com       New York - newyork@indiajuris.com  

If you do not wish to receive e-newsletter, type 'REMOVE & the E-mail Address to be removed' in the subject and resend it to us.