Bombay HC temporarily restricts Zee shareholder, Invesco from requisitioning for EMG

The judgement comes in light of ZEEL filing a suit under the ordinary original civil jurisdiction before the Bombay High court against Invesco and OFI Global China Fund LLC’s requisition for the EMG earlier this month on October 2. 

The Bombay High court announced on Tuesday, October 26 that it has temporarily restricted US-based Invesco Developing Markets Funds, which is the biggest shareholder of Zee Entertainment Enterprise Limited, from calling an Emergency General Meeting. The ruling, however, can be challenged in a higher court. 

The judgement comes in light of ZEEL filing a suit under the ordinary original civil jurisdiction before the Bombay High court against Invesco and OFI Global China Fund LLC’s requisition for the EMG earlier this month on October 2. 

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A single bench of the High Court led by Justice G S Patel had enquired with the company last week if it was willing to hold the EMG. However, Zee’s senior counsel Gopal Subramanium stated to the bench on Friday that the company’s board of directors could not authorise something that could turn out to be “illegal.”

Subramanium stated that the ZEEL board had been under apprehension following the query posed by the bench during the previous hearing and decided against holding an EMG. 

Invesco and OFI Global China Fund LLC, which hold a combined stake of 17.88 per cent in the entertainment company, had called for an EMG as they had been seeking to replace Zee’s current CEO and Managing Director Punit Goenka and reconstitute the board by appointing six new directors. 

ZEEL had also announced earlier today that its board meeting to deliberate and approve the company’s financial performance for the second quarter of the financial year 2022 has been cancelled due to lack of quorum in the board for the meeting. The meeting was slated to be held on Wednesday, October 27. 

Zee later assured in an exchange filing that it would announce a new date to hold the board meeting through the issuance of a fresh notice.