The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) held that a dispute over unpaid celebrity endorsement fees cannot be treated as an “operational debt” under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC). The ruling came in an appeal filed by actor Akshay Kumar against ed-tech firm Cue Learn, challenging the National Company Law Tribunal’s (NCLT) refusal to initiate corporate insolvency proceedings, Bar and Bench reported.
A Bench of Justice N Seshasayee and Indevar Pandey upheld the NCLT’s decision, which had dismissed Kumar’s Section 9 plea on grounds of a pre-existing dispute.
The case stemmed from a March 8, 2021 tripartite endorsement agreement under which the actor agreed to provide services for up to two days in…