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Leaving behind rivalry over acquisition of shares of liquor company Herbertsons Ltd, the UB group and the Chhabrias on Monday agreed in the Supreme Court, at least on extending the dates for competitive bidding for the shares of the target company.
A Bench comprising Chief Justice V N Khare, Justice S B Sinha and Justice AR Lakshmanan allowed a common request made by counsel -- Fali S Nariman for Vijay Mallaya's UB group and Kapil Sibal for the Chhabrias -- to extend the dates for bidding of Herbertsons' shares.
The common request, in written form, said, "to enable the contesting groups to resolve all disputes, it is prayed that the schedule of dates for major activities of the offer and counter-offer be revised..."
As per the request, the court advanced the last date of revision of the offer price and the competitive bid and the number of shares to January 15, 2004 and the last date for withdrawal of acceptance to January 27.
Consequently, the last date for closing both the offer and counter-offer was advanced to January 30 and the date by which acceptance/rejection to be communicated and payment despatched to March 2.
However, the court took note of the submissions of Solicitor General Kirit Raval, who appeared for Securities and Exchange Board of India, and said that notwithstanding the agreement between the parties, they have to "strictly comply with all takeover regulations".