We don't agree with Upaid's allegation at all: Satyam

15 May 2008

Srinivas Vadlamani, chief financial offiv\cer, Satyam Computer Services, said that from Satyam's point of view, it had delivered whatever was required to be done. "Absolutely we don't agree with their (Upaid's) allegation at all, that there is some forgery and all that.

"First of all there is no modified intention and also why Satyam should forge those things and what is it that Satyam is gaining - so that is what is going to be contested in the court definitely," he said.

Shamnad M Basheer, IP expert at Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre feels that in most litigations of this sort, at some point the parties estimate as to who is going to win or loss and typically drive down on a settlement. "So I wouldn't be surprised if this matter gets settled in the next couple of months to a year," he said.      

CNBC-TV18 shares with domain-b its exclusive interview with Basheer and Vadlamani:

From your understanding of this entire case right now how strong or weak is Satyam's position?
Basheer: It's one of the trickiest legal cases that I have seen because there are about three contracts that we are talking about here and all three contracts are subject to the laws of different jurisdictions. So it's certainly one of the trickiest contractual legal matters that we have around here. It's very difficult to tell at this stage that who is going to win at the end but if the allegation of forgeries is true; I think some of the cases are really going to rest on that. Obviously someone has to pay up for that if there was forgery because of which Upaid lost on the patent litigation in the US, they have to give a royalty-free licence and what they are seeking now is basically that Satyam is to blame.

So they are trying to make Satyam pay for it and you have all these different contracts. And in the end, if the forgery allegation proves true and if there is ambiguity in the contract, the judge is pretty much going to go on the side of the person that relatively seems to be coming with clean hands. So it's a 50-50 situation; on the legal interpretation it might tilt against Satyam at the final stage.