American ex-partner files SC appeal against Satyam

A US-based company has moved to the Supreme Court challenging the Andhra Pradesh high court order that ruled in favour of the scam-hit Satyam Computer Services.

The high court had said that its founder Ramalinga Raju's admission of fraud and subsequent developments cannot be used to challenge a foreign arbitral award.

A Supreme Court bench comprising justices P Sathasivam and H L Dattu issued a notice to Satyam (now Mahindra Satyam) seeking its response, and asked all the parties concerned to file their submissions by 13 July.

The Michigan-based petitioner, Venture Global Engineering, which had an equal joint venture with Satyam, requested the apex court to set aside the high court order which had dismissed its petition seeking permission to file additional written submissions in the wake of Raju's confession on 7 January 2009 of cooking the books of the IT firm he founded.

Venture Global and Satyam had a 50:50 joint venture called Satyam Venture Engineering Services. But a dispute arose between them regarding the shareholding agreement, which was referred for an international arbitration. In April 2006, the arbitrator gave an award in favour of Satyam and directed the Michigan-based firm to transfer its entire shareholding in Satyam Venture Engineering in favour of the scam-hit firm.

Venture Global challenged the arbitral award in a Secunderabad court, which allowed its plea to take on record all subsequent events following Raju's confession of fraud.