Mamta Binani: Baptism by Fire

Mamta Binani, an insolvency professional, lawyer and a company secretary, may have earned many laurels in her illustrious career – she was the president of Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI), the second women president – but the one that will stand out for her is being the insolvency professional to oversee the first resolution under the newly implemented Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) in September 2017.

However, it was baptism by fire for Mamta Binani. She oversaw the resolution of Synergies Dooray case, where the financial creditors had to take 94% haircut, and she was accused by one of the financial creditors — Edelweiss ARC – of siding with the corporate debtor. Edelweiss ARC even moved the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) against the resolution plan and requested it to scrap the plan, which was approved by 90 per cent financial creditors.

But for Mamta Binani, these were just minor distractions which could not deter her from pursuing her goal of finding a resolution in the case.  Since then Binani has come a long way and has emerged as one of the most sought-after independent insolvency professionals.

Her journey as Insolvency professional

She has so far handled close to a dozen insolvency cases either as a resolution professional or as a liquidator. Some of these were not only big cases in terms of amount of outstanding debt but also in terms of complexities and controversies.

She has handled two large cases Deccan Chronicle as resolution professional and Sterling Biotech as liquidator. While Deccan Chronicle case ended in a resolution, Sterling Biotech was withdrawn after creditors agreed for a one-time settlement.

Sterling Biotech case was especially intriguing because after been sent for liquidation, one of main creditors – Andhra Bank – decided to withdraw the case under Section 12A of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) after the promoters agreed for a one-time settlement with the bank.

The Deccan Chronicle case ended in resolution with the SREI Multiple Asset Investment Trust-Vision India Fund bought the company for a sum of Rs 350 crore  against total dues of Rs 8180 crore.

Report Card

*Filed for voluntary liquidation.

Background

Mamta Binani was the past President of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) for the year 2016. She was only the second woman President of ICSI in the 52-year history of the Institute.

Mamta Binani is a commerce graduate, a Fellow Member of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India and has done her LLB.

She has been practising as a Company Secretary for over 21 years and is a senior partner of Mamta Binani & Associates, which has offices in Pune, Kolkata and Chennai. She is now practising as an advocate and is also a consultant on restructuring, corporate and legal matters. She is also a registered Insolvency Professional.

She also serves as an Independent Director on few of the prestigious Boards and has served as the promoter director of the ICSI Insolvency Professionals Agency (now known as ICSI Institute of Insolvency Professionals).

Her Thoughts

“Unlike a CA or a CS, the role of insolvency professional is multi-faceted and much more challenging. As an insolvency professional, some decisions may be correct but there would still be litigations. Some of your decisions may go wrong, but may not be malafide, but in such cases there are bound to have litigations.”