Airlines Deals

Jet Airways on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court, seeking transfer of all cases relating to the failed Air Sahara deal, pending before the Bombay High Court and the Lucknow District Court.
In a statement “clarifying” its stand on the failed deal, Jet Airways said, “Any comments on the merits of the controversies between parties will, therefore, be inappropriate and improper.”

The controversy arose after Air Sahara submitted before the Lucknow District Court that the deal was still “subsisting”, while Jet executives maintained that it had expired. “For commercial reasons, and in the interest of Jet Airways and its family of shareholders, the management decided not to extend the time” after the expiry of the share purchase agreement on June 21, Jet executives told PTI.

Jet’s Rs 2,300-crore deal to buy Air Sahara fell through as the parties missed the June 21 escrow account deadline since Jet chairman Naresh Goyal did not get a security clearance to join the Air Sahara board.

Observing that commercial transactions had “their own time frame based on financial and other techno-commercial compulsions”, the Jet statement said, “On account of this, the time limits in the share purchase agreement have expired before the conditions precedent have been met.”

Regarding the “credentials” of its management in the wake of a controversy over the delay in granting of security clearance to Goyal, Jet said, “The latest communication by the Government of India has laid the controversy to rest — nothing more needs to be said.”

Goyal was cleared by the home ministry a day after the deal collapsed. Terming the controversy over the failure of the deal as “unfortunate”, Jet said it had “acted entirely on sensible commercial and legal advice received by it” and that there was no need to read anything more into the actions of the two parties “beyond commercial considerations”.