A Mumbai court has been asked to intervene in a dispute between Vibri Media, the producers of the soon-to-be-released Bollywood film 83, and a UAE-based finance business, alleging conspiracy, defrauding, and conniving to syphon cash from it to make the film.
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According to the complaint submitted, a representative of the complainant, Future Resources FZE, met with Vibri Media as the latter was searching for large investments, according to Bar and Bench. Vibri was accused of making misleading, exaggerated statements and submitting fake profit-and-loss projections in order to persuade FZE to invest Rs. 15.9 crore in Vibri.
FZE entered into two agreements with Vibri, the Securities Subscription Agreement (SSA) and the Shareholders Agreement (SHA), based on the representations and warranties, and became a shareholder. Vibri was required to notify FZE of any third-party transaction and obtain positive consent from it before executing any agreement. Despite the clause, FZE claimed that Vibri knowingly violated the terms and conditions with the objective of defrauding FZE, syphoning funds, and causing FZE undue loss.
Vibri allegedly entered into various agreements for the production of the Hindi film 83 with Reliance Big Films, Phantom Films, Kabir Khan, Sajid Nadiadwala, and Deepika Padukone without receiving positive written authorization from FZE. Vibri was also stated to be obligated under the agreements to utilise the money belonging to FZE for the company’s commercial purposes rather than for the personal benefit of its directors.
Vishnu Indhuri, the director of Vibri, was arraigned as the film’s producer in his personal capacity, while the film’s documents were executed with Vibri, the company. All of the charged accused were aware that the attendance of the company’s officials was required for performing Vibri’s business, including approving board resolutions, according to the complaint submitted by counsel Rizwan Siddiquee, “engineered a plan to jointly and severally cheat and delude FZE since the very inception”.
To demand an explanation, FZE sent Vibri a legal notice requesting scrutiny of the documents, which FZE claimed were intentionally hidden from them. FZE has petitioned the Metropolitan Magistrate in Andheri, Mumbai, for the issuance of process against all the charged accused for allegedly violating the Indian Penal Code’s Sections 405, 406 (criminal breach of trust), 415, 418, 420 (cheating), and 120B (criminal conspiracy).
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The premise of the film 83 is inspired on India’s incredible World Cup victory in 1983. Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone, Ammy Virk, Hardy Sandhu, and Saqib Saleem feature in the film 83. Originally set for a theatrical release on April 10, 2020, but was repeatedly postponed owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. The ultimate release date has been determined for December 24, 2021.
