Ready to pay Rs 7000 crore loan from Uttam, KSSP: Arcelor

NEW DELHI: ArcelorMittal on Thursday told the Supreme Court that it was willing to pay the Rs 7,000 crore loan default by Uttam Galva (UG) and KSS Petron (KSSP) to be eligible to bid for debt-ridden Essar Steel but stressed that the same yardstick must apply to the Ruias’ front company Numetal.

When ArcelorMittal counsel Harish Salve and A M Singhvi said the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) had applied two yardsticks in judging bids submitted by it and Numetal and ignored many submissions, counsel for the Committee of Creditors’ Gopal Subramanium agreed that the appellate tribunal missed many issues raised before it. Counsel for the resolution professional, Ramji Srinivasan, concurred that NCLAT had ignored several arguments on procedure.

Salve said Essar Steel, in which the Ruias had 90% stake, had defaulted on Rs 50,000 crore of loans and since they wanted to get back into controlling the company through Numetal, they must discharge their liability by paying Rs 45,000 crore (proportionate to their stake) to the banks, to whom they had given personal guarantee, as Arcelor-Mittal was doing for debts of UG and KSSP.

A bench of Justices R F Nariman and Indu Malhotra said, “Whatever be the yardstick, it must apply with same rigour to both ArcelorMittal and Numetal.”

Salve presented a chart to the court detailing how Numetal was fully controlled by Essar promoter Ravi Ruia’s son Rewant. Pleading with the SC to lift the corporate veil of Numetal, he narrated the sequence in which its shares were transferred without revealing details of new entities that acquired controlling shares in Numetal, including Russia’s VTB Bank, which has been prohibited by European Council Regulation from trading in securities and entering capital markets.