The recently issued Banking Regulation (Amendment) Ordinance is perceived by many as a magic bullet to resolve the NPA crisis that has overtaken the banking sector in India. The Ordinance authorises the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to initiate insolvency resolution in respect of a defaulting company under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, to issue directions to banks to resolve their stressed assets and institute committees to “advise” banks on resolution of stressed assets.

While the Ordinance certainly empowers…

In an unprecedented case, Eli Lilly initiated an amended investor-state-dispute-settlement (ISDS) claim against the government of Canada in 2013 after Canada’s highest courts upheld invalidations on new therapeutic use patents for two chemical compounds – olanzapine and atomoxetine, the active pharmaceutical ingredients of Strattera and Zyprexa respectively. The courts had ruled that Canada’s well established “promise utility doctrine” was not satisfied because the evidence provided by Eli Lilly at the time of its patent applications did not support the…

The health spa and casino complex in Baden-Baden in Germany was the venue for two-day meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors held on 17 and 18 March. Baden-Baden is better known as a luxurious spa town with expensive shops and Konditoreien (pastry shops), where rich Russians and others like to spend their (laundered or tax evaded) money. However, the G20 ministers and governors did not come to clean up the place, although that could have easily been…

The Second Advance Estimates of National Income, 2016-17 produced by the Central Statistical Office (CSO) show that demonetisation has had no impact on the country’s economic growth. According to the CSO, Indian economy grew by a healthy 7% in the third quarter of the current financial year, quite contrary to even the expectations of even the Finance Ministry. The Economic Survey had observed, “demonetisation has had short-term costs”, which “real and significant”, and added that the costs would be…

My  2016 report to the UN General Assembly (A/71/286) on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order is devoted to tax evasion, tax fraud and tax havens. In this report, I recall that the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights do not contain any provision concerning the obligation of businesses to pay their fair share of taxes. There is no mention of tax evasion, tax fraud or tax havens. Nor is there any mention in…