The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) at Bengaluru has received two petitions against ed-tech start-up Byju’s seeking initiation of insolvency proceedings for recovery of 1.2 billion dollars.
Both the petitions have been filed by international lenders of the ed-tech start-up.
The first petition has been filed by a group of lenders, which is pending scrutiny by the registry of the NCLT Bengaluru.
The second plea is by Teleperformance Business Services India Limited, the Indian unit of a French multinational company, which is the operational creditor to Think & Learn Pvt, the parent company of Byju’s.
The Teleperformance Business Services India Limited petition was filed by King Stubb & Kasiva from New Delhi on November 4, 2023. After scrutiny by the NCLT Registry, the petition was finally numbered on January 25, 2024 and will be listed for hearing in due course.
Byju’s is also facing NCLT proceedings from the Board of Control for Cricket in India. On December 4, BCCI had approached the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) for initiating corporate insolvency proceedings against Byju’s for allegedly defaulting on the payment of Rs 158 crore.
The coram consisting of judicial member K Bishwal and technical member Manoj Kumar Dubey on November 28, had asked for response from Byju’s in the matter.
The NCLT was apprised that Byju’s was sent a notice on January 6, 2023 over the payment of Rs 158 crore excluding TDS.
The tribunal proceeded to issue notice to Byju’s and asked the company to file its reply within two weeks.
As per available information, the dues cited by BCCI were payable in respect of a contract to sponsor the jerseys of the Indian cricket team.
The BCCI and Byju’s entered into a sponsorship contract initially in 2019, when it took over sponsoring the cricket team’s jerseys from mobile phone manufacturer OPPO.
As per reports, this contract initially ended in 2022, but it was later extended for 2023.