The Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) application for insolvency proceedings against the massive ed-tech company Byju’s has been accepted by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). The complaint concerns purported unpaid debts of INR 158 crore associated with the Indian cricket team’s sponsorship.
The conflict began in September 2023 when Byju’s parent company Think & Learn Pvt Ltd was the target of an application filed by the BCCI with the NCLT’s Bengaluru bench. According to the cricket board, Byju’s had neglected to make payments for the Indian cricket team’s sponsorship rights.
Byju’s had used BCCI’s services through sponsorship rights, the NCLT court ruled in its ruling, and there was unmistakable proof of an unpaid obligation. A correspondence trail between the two parties, which proved the debt’s existence and repeated defaults, was reviewed by the tribunal.
The ruling said that the default amount of ₹158 crore, excluding TDS (tax deducted at source), as shown in the accompanying invoices, was the subject of the general notice that was sent in response to Byju’s email on January 6, 2023.
Byju’s effort to get the application rejected
Twelve bills from BCCI for the team’s numerous international tours and series are at issue in this dispute. 50% of the total was due on August 21, 2022, which marked the first default. Byju permitted BCCI to cash a bank guarantee of INR 143 crore in January 2023, but the balance owed is still INR 158.9 crore.
The sponsor then made an attempt to have the application denied, claiming that their contract with BCCI had expired on March 31, 2022. Nonetheless, the tribunal came to the conclusion that the corporation was continuing to use BCCI‘s services long after the agreement had expired based on the persistently raised invoices.
In a further event, the panel denied Byju’s January 2024 plea for arbitration. In addition, the tribunal declared that instances involving insolvency are not subject to arbitration and that it must either accept or reject the petition.
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