The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has granted a hearing to Mad Men Film, a shareholder of Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited, regarding its plea for the execution of the abandoned merger with the Indian arm of Sony Pictures Network. Mad Men Film contends that the proposed merger, which aimed to establish a $10-billion media conglomerate, should proceed as it received approval from the NCLT, as reported by CNBC-TV18 on January 30.
While seeking a response from Sony, the NCLT rejected the argument that its approval was contingent on specific conditions, emphasizing that such conditions needed to be explicitly fulfilled or waived in writing. Sony officially called off the merger on January 22, citing Zee’s failure to meet certain financial terms and address them adequately, according to Reuters.
In response, Zee refuted the allegations and accused Sony of acting in “bad faith” by terminating the merger. Notably, Zee’s public shareholders have reportedly written to the company, seeking detailed information on the events leading to the termination of the merger agreement.
Amidst speculations of an emergency arbitration hearing on the defunct merger scheduled for January 31 in Singapore, CNBC-TV18 revealed that Zee had approached both the NCLT and the Singapore International Arbitration Centre against Sony Pictures on January 24. The Zee stock witnessed an 8.9 percent surge in morning trading following these developments.