Foreign creditor urges NCLT to restrain Byju's from transferring shares

Foreign creditor Glas Trust LLC recently urged the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) at Bengaluru to restrain Think & Learn, the parent company of edtech firm Byju’s, from pledging, selling or transferring its shares. [Glas Trust LLC v. Think & Learn Pvt Ltd].A coram of judicial member K Biswal and technical member Manoj Kumar Dubey granted time to Byju's to respond to the prayer and posted the matter for hearing on June 10..Glas Trust is a US-based non-banking loan agency that was appointed by over 100 lenders as an administrative agent for a term loan of about $1.2 billion.The US-based company moved the NCLT after Byju's defaulted in the repayment of a loan of over ₹8,000 crore.The plea filed through Khaitan & Co claimed that the default in the repayment of the loan began in 2022 and that it was an admitted default..Senior Advocate Udaya Holla and advocate Avinash Balakrishna appearing for Glas Trust, informed the tribunal that Byju's was borrowing more money and alienating its shares in exchange, causing grave prejudice to them. In view of this, the US-based lender urged the NCLT to immediately restrain the company from pledging, selling or transferring its shares. Holla claimed that Byju's owner Raveendra Byju borrowed ₹350 crore in exchange for some of his shares. However, since Byju was based out of Dubai, the lender will be left with no one to prosecute and recover the money from. "So many insolvency petitions pending against Byju's in NCLT Bengaluru speak about the company's financial conditions," Holla said. .Appearing for Byju's, Senior Advocate Dhyan Chinappa requested for time to respond to the allegations made by the lender. He added that the claims were not substantiated by proof and that the relief was being sought without giving Byju's an opportunity to respond. .The tribunal granted Byju's time to respond to the allegations and listed the matter for hearing on June 10. .In a related matter, Byju's also sought time to explore the possibility of settling debts owed to other lenders.Byju's was already granted time in April to reach a settlement with Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) entity Teleperformance Business Services. Advocate Promod Nair, appearing for Byju's, expressed that the ed-tech company is also trying to settle with digital marketing vendor Surfer Technologies..The NCLT granted time to Byju's to settle with both service providers and file a joint settlement memo by June 26. Failing this, the tribunal indicated that it will proceed with hearing the insolvency applications.