IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
CIVIL APPEAL NO. 7796 OF 1997
GVK Industries Ltd. & Anr. … Appellants
Versus
The Income Tax Officer & Anr. … Respondents
With the intention to utilize the expert services of qualified and experienced professionals who could prepare a scheme for raising the required finance and tie up the required loan, it sought services of a consultant and eventually entered into an agreement with ABB – Projects & Trade Finance International Ltd., Zurich, Switzerland, (hereinafter referred to as “Non-Resident Company/NRC”).The NRC, having regard to the requirements of the appellant-company offered its services as financial advisor to its project from July 08, 1993. Those services included, inter alia, financial structure and security package to be offered to the lender, making an assessment of export credit agencies world-wide and obtaining commercial bank support on the most competitive terms, assisting the appellant loan negotiations and documentation with lenders and structuring, negotiating and closing the financing for the project in a coordinated and expeditious manner. For its services the NRC was to be paid, what is termed as, “success fee” at the rate of 0.75% of the total debt financing. The said proposal was placed before the Board meeting of the company on August 21, 1993 and the Board of Directors approved the appointment of the NRC and advised that it be involved in the proposed public issue of share by the company. The NRC rendered professional services from Zurich by correspondence as to how to execute the documents for sanction of loan by the financial institutions within and outside the country. With advice of NRC the appellant-company approached the Indian Financial Institutions with the Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) acting as the Lead Financier for its Rupee loan requirement and for a part of its foreign currency loan requirement it approached International Finance Corporation(IFC), Washington DC, USA. After successful rendering of services the NRC sent invoice to the appellant-company for payment of success fee amount i.e., US $.17,15,476.16 (Rs.5.4 Crores)….read more