Madras HC dismisses SpiceJet's appeal against winding up

The Madras High Court on Tuesday dismissed SpiceJet's appeal against admission of its winding up on Credit Suisse AG's petition. The judgment comes after the high court reserved the order for today. The case was heard by a Division Bench of Sathi Kumar Sukumara Kurup and Paresh Upadhyay. The court agreed to put the stay on operation of winding up till January 28 so as to give the airline the opportunity to approach the Supreme Court.

SpiceJet advocate Ashok Menon said, "We have taken time to file an appeal before the Supreme court. We will be moving the Supreme Court".

The court also informed the counsels that the updated order copy will be uploaded to the high court website by tomorrow.

Madras High Court had ordered the admission of SpiceJet on December 6 upon the petition filed by Switzerland-based Credit Suisse AG that alleged that the airline is unable to pay the debts owed to the firm.

The airline had reportedly availed services of SR Technics in Switzerland for aircraft maintenance and repair and other services through an agreement that has a lifetime of 10 years in 2011.

The two parties signed a supplemental agreement in 2021, according to Live Law, that enabled them to repay the amount raised by SR Technics. The invoices raised by SR Technics, the seven corresponding Bills of Exchange and the acknowledgement of the debts was the matter of contention before the high court.

Credit Suisse AG was assigned the rights to receive payments due to SRT in 2012 through a financial agreement. It also entitled the third party to receive payments from SpiceJet under the seven invoices raised by SRT.

The Swiss firm stated that even after repeated requests SpiceJet shrugged off responsibilities to repay the money due as per the invoices.

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