ICICI Bank's board to meet to review insolvency cases

Mumbai, April 2: Private lender ICICI Bank said it will convene a board meeting on Monday to review cases under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code which are before the National Company Law Tribunal along with other routine matters.

"ICICI Bank's Board meeting being held today is a pre-scheduled board meeting convened for review of cases which are before the National Company Law Tribunal under Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code and other routine matters," the private bank said in a regulatory filing to the BSE.

The bank pointed out that the meeting was routine in nature and that the board had been meeting regularly in the first week of April in the previous years, too, to review progress in resolution of large cases.

The board meeting is the first one after a controversy broke out last week over alleged conflict of interest involving its CEO and MD Chanda Kochhar and Videocon group.

The CBI had registered a preliminary enquiry against Deepak Kochhar, husband of the ICICI bank MD and CEO, officials of the Videocon group and others to determine whether any wrongdoing was involved in the sanctioning of a Rs 3,250 crore loan to the Videocon Group by the ICICI Bank as part of a consortium of banks in 2012.

CBI sources said that Chanda Kochhar, against whom conflict of interest questions had been raised, was not named in the preliminary enquiry.

However, the bank's board said it had full confidence and reposed full faith in Chanda Kochhar, saying the bank's exposure to the Videocon Group for a debt consolidation programme and for the group's oil and gas capital expenditure programme aggregating approximately Rs 40,000 crore was less than 10 per cent.