Supreme Court upholds the ruling that set aside the write-down of Yes Bank’s ₹8,415 crore AT1 bonds

Yes Bank Limited has told the exchanges that the Supreme Court of India, on 15 Oct 2026, delivered its judgment in the proceedings over the March 2020 write-down of Additional Tier-1 (AT1) bonds aggregating ₹8,415 crore. The court upheld the 20 Jan 2023 judgment of the Bombay High Court and dismissed the appeals filed by the bank, the Reserve Bank of India and the Union of India.

The Bombay High Court had set aside the Administrator’s order that wrote down the bonds, which was made in March 2020 as part of the bank’s reconstruction. The Supreme Court’s order dismisses the appeals against that decision and says any interim order stands vacated. It also says the payment of the annual coupon is unaffected by the outcome and must be made as set out in the information memoranda, that the parties bear their own costs, and that pending proceedings may be taken to their conclusion uninfluenced by the judgment.

The bank says it respects the judgment and is examining it in detail, including evaluating the legal options available. It says the pro forma impact of reinstating the AT1 principal on its CET1 ratio, including profits, as of 30 Jun 2026 is expected to be about 250 basis points, while its Tier 1 ratio on the same basis would stay at 14.0%. It adds that it has access to capital-management levers and keeps the flexibility to take additional capital actions.

Inference

The judgment leaves the High Court’s decision in place, so the write-down of the AT1 bonds stands set aside. The bank says it will make further disclosures once it has reviewed the order, so the practical steps that follow are not yet stated.

The bank has given a pro forma figure of about 250 basis points for the effect on its CET1 ratio and says its Tier 1 ratio would remain at 14.0%. CET1 and Tier 1 ratios are measures of the capital a bank holds against its risk-weighted assets. The bank has not described the specific capital actions it may take.