ICICI bank consulted offshore firm in DSC loan deafult case

New Delhi Nov 8: The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has once brought out paradise papers - the documents to shun the light on offshore entities.

The documents reveal the details that ICICI bank has approached the offshore law firm to sought a legal advise in settling a loan default case.

Construction major DSC Ltd (DS Construction Ltd) bagged several road and railway projects including the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway obtained a loan of $135 million from ICICI Bank in 2006.

Appleby documents show that ICICI Bank took the advice of the legal firm on the outstanding loan amount. DSC Ltd was incorporated on October 13, 1978, to acquire the businesses of M/s Thakur Enterprises, New Delhi and M/s DS Narula & Company, New Delhi.

Elsingham-DSC Mauritius Private Ltd, one of the holding companies of DSC Ltd, borrowed $135 million from ICICI Bank Ltd on December 26, 2006.A Non-Disposal Undertaking (NDU) was signed in New Delhi between H S Narula, Elsingham Holdings Ltd and ICICI Bank Ltd (Bahrain Branch) on December 28, 2006.

on February 7, 2011, Abhijeet Das of ICICI Bank wrote to Deep Roy of Economic Laws Practice. ICICI Bank requested him to "conduct a review of the documents with regard to Facility Agreement and the various security agreements and to confirm to ICICI Bank the enforceability of the various securities/contractual comforts and to clearly indicate the steps required to enforce such security/contractual comforts in case of an event of default under the financing documents"

The law firm has given its response and charged $3026.41 for providing professional services.

Response from ICICI Bank

The bank said that "This loan was settled in the first quarter of 2016 and nothing is outstanding now."

DSC Ltd's director Narinder Singh Narula said "H S Narula is a British Citizen and is holding a British Passport. His investments are governed by British Laws. He does not have any income in India".