India: Contracts and Commercial Law

Asymmetric dispute resolution clauses are widely used in cross-border commercial agreements, but their enforceability under Indian law remains unsettled. This article analyses three types of asymmetric clauses, examines how the Singapore and EU Courts have treated them and analysis the conflicting judicial approach in India.

India has slowly moved away from the 29 central labour legislations with consolidation and introduction of the four Labour Codes (which came into force on November 21, 2025) with the objective of modernising and simplifying the regulatory landscape.

The September 2026 edition of Fox & Mandal's newsletter examines MCA’s FAQs on foreign company registration; proposed amendments to the NBFC credit facilities framework; expansion of OBPP offerings; operationalisation of FDI in inventory-based cross-border e-commerce; Demat 2.0 for tokenisation of corporate bonds; NHAI Policy Circular on real-time blacklisting and non-performance records; and other changes in India's corporate, capital markets, infrastructure, and banking sectors.

On 25 February 2026, the Bureau of Indian Standards quietly rewrote the rulebook governing how manufacturers and importers obtain and maintain the right to use the ISI mark through the Bureau of Indian Standards (Conformity Assessment) Amendment Regulations, 2026.

A sponsorship may cover broadcast exposure, category exclusivity and association with the event. Two days before the event, a regulatory restriction makes the sponsor’s product difficult to advertise, while the rights holder continues to expect payment.The sponsor may therefore be paying for rights it can no longer use.

A comprehensive legal analysis of intellectual property ownership over moulds, tooling, CAD technical drawings, and product modifications in cross-border outsourced manufacturing. Covers supplier retention risks, unauthorised third-shift runs, ASEAN IP protection strategies for Indian OEMs, and a model supply-contract IP schedule.

India’s startup definition has long been tied to two basic limits: the age of the business and its annual turnover. The test was easy to apply, but it did not always reflect the reality of ventures whose growth does not follow a conventional timeline. Deep tech businesses may spend years on scientific research, product testing and technology development before earning meaningful revenue. Cooperative enterprises may also build innovative and scalable solutions, even though their ownership structure differs from that of a company or an LLP. As India’s startup ecosystem became more diverse, the earlier framework began to leave some genuine innovators outside its scope.

Businesses collect personal data through websites, mobile applications, customer accounts, marketing forms, financial transactions and digital services. As data use becomes more complex, consent management is no longer simply a matter of adding an “I agree” button to a website.

Business transfers can fail even after legal closing when operational contracts, tax and stamp-duty treatment, and governance rights have not been dealt with together. The buyer may acquire the business legally but still face disrupted operations, restricted commercial rights or unexpected tax liabilities from the first day.