The Supreme Court has stayed insolvency proceedings at Mack Soft Tech, an Indian subsidiary of Irish business group Quinn that owns Q-City, an IT park in Hyderabad housing offices of Amazon, Mytrah Energy and TCS, among others.
The top court bench comprising Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman and Justice Indu Malhotra on Monday stayed the insolvency proceedings, while directing the respondents to file counters in a week’s time.
This comes even as investigating agency Enforcement Directorate is intensifying its probe into the alleged money laundering of millions of dollars at Mack Soft Tech and advising the resolution professional to alert the prospective resolution applicants regarding the ongoing probe.
The key resolution applicants that showed interest in buying the assets of Q-City include Brookfield, Edelweiss, Embassy group, Kotak Investment, Shriram Properties, and Bengaluru-headquartered property developer IBC Group, among a few others.
Hyderabad bench of National Company Law Tribunal’s (NCLT) had ordered corporate insolvency resolution process for Mack Soft Tech when its financial creditor turned-majority stakeholder Quinn Logistics India filed the insolvency petition after failing to recover its dues from the IT park developer.
Insolvency professional Mohanlal Jain went ahead with the directives of the tribunal and invited resolution proposals, attracting over a dozen interested parties submitting their resolution plans ahead of the deadline September 19.
When IBRC came to India scouting for the assets of Quinn group to be monetised for recovering dues, Mack Soft Tech had not only disputed the dues but also disclosed that Dubai-based Mecon FZE now owned a majority stake of over 98.5% in it that was acquired through a fresh equity issue.
Quinn group, through IBRC, contested the majority ownership of Mecon FZE in Mack Soft Tech before certain Indian civil courts, where the cases are still pending.
Mack Soft Tech had contested the liabilities and insolvency petition filed by Quinn group, but the tribunal had in August last year ruled in favour of the financial creditor and ordered insolvency proceedings, while appointing a resolution professional.
Subsequently, Mack Soft Tech and the Dubai-based Mecon FZE separately moved the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal challenging the NCLT orders on insolvency proceedings.
However, the tribunal had on May 2 this year upheld the orders on the corporate insolvency resolution process at Mack Soft Tech.
