Jet crisis: NCLAT agrees to hear Dutch Court insolvency administrator

Dutch insolvency court administrator says will not sell seized assets of airline until common solution reached

A Dutch district court-appointed administrator Rocco Mulder on Friday told the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) that he was ready to give an undertaking that they would not sell the confiscated assets of Jet Airways, including the aircraft standing idle at the Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. 

The NCLAT, while agreeing to hear the Dutch court administrator, also stayed a portion of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) Mumbai Bench’s order that held that Dutch insolvency administrator’s offshore proceeding were not maintainable and hence they could not be allowed to access the airlines’ financial assets in India. 

The appellate tribunal has also asked the consortium of lenders in India to respond to the Dutch court administrator’s plea within two weeks.

Apart from India, Jet is also facing insolvency proceedings in the Netherlands, which is a regional hub for the European operations of the airline. Jet was declared bankrupt in the Netherlands in response to a complaint filed by two European creditors, H Esser Finance Company and Wallenborn Transport, who had claimed unpaid dues worth Rs 280 crore. Following this, the insolvency administrators had approached the NCLT with a plea that they should be allowed to access the firm’s assets in India, too, which would enable them to recover monies to pay off the two European creditors. 

On Friday, the NCLAT also asked the Dutch insolvency court administrator to compile a list of claims made by other parties and to ensure that the assets, if any, with them should not be sold yet. 

The claims will be forwarded to the resolution professional of the company appointed by the NCLT Mumbai Bench, the NCLAT said. A three-member Bench also observed that this case would call for cross-border insolvency and whether separate proceedings of Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process against a common corporate debtor could proceed simultaneously in two different countries which had no territorial jurisdiction over each other.