The International Court of ARBITRATION
PrivateCourt was named as the designated resolution party in a business loan contract signed between an NBFC and a real estate agency owner in case disagreements, conflicts, or disputes arose during the term of the contract.
The real estate agency owner was based in Jaipur, Rajasthan, and was involved in the selling, renting, or management of commercial properties. He operated his business from a small rental space situated at the heart of the city where most of the business community was based. The entire business was managed between him and eight staff members whom he had appointed on a commission basis. The condition of the building where his office was located was worsening by the day, and soon, the city municipal had declared it unsafe for the accommodation of any kind. With a notice of less than a month to move out, the estate agency owner had to find a quick fix.
With little savings that he had managed to accrue with past earnings, he thought it was the right time to purchase his own office space which he thought would add more credibility and trust to his name and business. Having identified a perfect property that suited his budget, he approached a well-established NBFC to fund his loan request.
The NBFC that was involved in this case primarily lent to infrastructural projects aiming at higher returns in the future coming from property investments, including giving credit to small businesses and the unorganized sector.
After a series of quick paperwork and express loan approval requests, the estate broker soon inaugurated his new office.
The principal and interest amounted to approximately 15 lacs with a monthly EMI of Rs. 25,000 till loan completion.
The Arbitration clause was invoked by the NBFC as the Claimant, calling upon PrivateCourt to settle the dispute involving non-payment of Rs. 1, 89,000/- by the estate broker, now the respondent.
For the first two years, the respondent's business grew, and he managed to meet most of the projected benchmarks. All the employees received their dues on time and overheads were cleared timely.
Business took a big beating when a big well-established competitor took up a huge office space right next to the respondent’s premises, with a common office wall running right through.
With big sums of money spent on online as well as offline marketing, the competitor drained all the potential customers. The walk-ins were impressed by the impressive office set-up and landed up knocking on the competitor’s door.
The respondent managed to clear all the expected dues for three months in a row with the savings he had managed. Next, he borrowed from reliable friends, family and small-time lenders. However, the dry spell continued and business came to a complete standstill.
Just when the tail-end of the loan was pending to be repaid, the respondent started defaulting on his payments and the matter was passed on to PrivateCourt.
The team managed to conduct an in-depth discussion with the respondent to propose a solution to resolve the dispute.
Implementing and adhering to our unique and goal-oriented resolution process, PrivateCourt immediately identified in the first stage that this was a clear-cut case where there was an intent to pay, but the means to achieve it was difficult.
The entire situation had to be reevaluated on humanitarian grounds. The team was successful in coming up with a diverse set of proposals to tackle the issue.
The Claimant was updated about the situation and problem at hand. Keeping the larger goal in mind, the Claimant agreed to restructure the loan.
The PrivateCourt team managed to work on alternate ways the Respondent could generate income to repay the loans and sustain his business too.
The Respondent agreed to clear the loan of Rs. 2,86,750/- in 10 equal instalments on or before December 2022.
