HC directs Vivo to give ₹950 crore bank guarantee to ED to operate frozen bank accounts

Court gives seven working days to Vivo to furnish bank guarantee to ED

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday permitted Chinese smartphone maker Vivo to operate its various bank accounts frozen by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), in relation to a money-laundering investigation, subject to it furnishing a bank guarantee of ₹950 crore and maintaining ₹251 crore in its account.

The court gave seven working days to Vivo to furnish the bank guarantee to ED. It also directed the company to submit details about its remittances to ED. The court granted one week to the investigating agency to respond to Vivo’s plea to quash of the order freezing its various bank accounts while posting the case for further hearing on July 28.

During the hearing, ED’s counsel said so far the proceeds of crime in the money laundering case have been quantified to ₹1,200 crore. The ED’s counsel informed the court that the data received from Vivo relating to its probe was huge in size running upto 5GB of data. The agency said it needs at least one week to go through the data in the pen drive.

Vivo’s counsel, however, contended that the freezing of its account has affected its functioning. It sought permission to deal with its frozen bank accounts for making payments towards certain liabilities.

Vivo, in its petition, said, “Due to the amounts in the bank accounts being unavailable to the petitioner, the petitioner is unable to pay its statutory dues (such as customs duties, GST, TDS, etc) to various authorities, as well as other expenses (such as salaries, rent, etc) because of which its business has now been set on a path towards a commercial and civil death.”

The ED had earlier conducted searches at 48 locations across the country, including the premises linked to Vivo India and its associated entities, in a case involving Grand Prospect International Communication Private Limited (GPICPL) that was allegedly being run by some Chinese nationals.

The money laundering probe is based on an FIR registered at the Kalkaji police station in Delhi on December 5, 2021, following a complaint from the Deputy Registrar of Companies, Delhi and Haryana.