The former promoters of Ranbaxy now face jail time unless they cough up ₹35 billion

• India’s Supreme Court has ordered the former promoters of pharma major Ranbaxy, Malvinder Mohan Singh and his brother Shivinder Mohan Singh, to pay their outstanding dues to Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo or risk facing jail time.
  
• The apex court has been hearing a petition filed by Daiichi Sankyo alleging the non-payment of ₹35 billion. The amount had been awarded to the Japanese firm in a previous arbitration in mid-2016 by the Singapore High Court.
  
• The brothers sold their stake in Ranbaxy to Daiichi Sankyo in 2008. However, following the sale, a number of quality control issues and irregularities at Ranbaxy’s plants came to light.
  

India’s Supreme Court has ordered the former promoters of pharma major Ranbaxy, Malvinder Mohan Singh and his brother Shivinder Mohan Singh, to pay their outstanding dues to Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo or risk facing jail time.

The apex court has been hearing a petition filed by Daiichi Sankyo alleging the non-payment of ₹35 billion. The amount had been awarded to the Japanese firm in a previous arbitration in mid-2016 by the Singapore High Court.

The brothers sold their stake in Ranbaxy to Daiichi Sankyo in 2008. However, following the sale, a number of quality control issues and irregularities at Ranbaxy’s plants came to light, after which Daiichi Sankyo took the brothers to court.

In March 2019, the brothers had been ordered by the Supreme court to come up with a plan to pay the ₹35 billion amount but until now have failed to do so.

The two brothers have been mired in a conflict with each other in the last few years.

This came to a head in September 2018, when Shivinder Singh filed a case against his older brother Malvinder another associate Sunil Godhwani in the National Company Law Tribunal for their role in the “oppression and mismanagement” of Fortis Healthcare, Religare and related firms. He eventually withdrew the case after pressure from his mother.

The brothers are also being investigated by a number of Indian regulators, including the SEBI and SFIO,for the loss of ₹23 billion from their listed companies, which has resulted in their public shareholdings being frozen.

Fortis, which has been posting losses since 2015, has been at the centre of a money-laundering scandal related to the approval of unsecured loans to the brothers.


SEE ALSO:

The feuding ex-billionaire brothers: Shivinder Singh sues Malvinder over alleged mismanagement of Fortis empire