Satyam: No place to run; no place to hide

LONDON, UK: The House of Lords has refused Satyam leave to appeal the case between it and Upaid. The only issue now left open in the UK is how much Satyam will have to pay Upaid in legal fees.

“The road now leads to substantive resolution. It must be obvious, even to Satyam’s management, that justice is at hand,” said Upaid Chairman & CEO Simon Joyce. He praised the UK’s “swift and definitive” judicial ruling that assures Satyam will face a jury in Texas, as Upaid had intended from the outset.

“Satyam appears to have been in a state of denial. They lost in the UK High Court and again on appeal and have now lost in the House of Lords. Next they will lose in Texas”, Joyce said.

“Satyam management is still trying to wriggle out of Federal Court jurisdiction in the Eastern District of Texas,” Joyce added. “Even if they were to do so, which we’re confident they will not, they’ll face all but identical proceedings in the Texas State Court made up from the same essential jury pool.”

Joyce, noting that Upaid has been waiting a year for Satyam’s answer to the charges contained in Upaid’s complaint, said that Satyam has so far “used denial, dodge and delay. Their shareholders will be hoping they now recover their sense of reason. It may be more likely that Satyam will become desperate as they see the avenues of escape closing one by one.”

Upaid spokesperson Joanne Hunter pointed to Satyam’s “minuscule” (less than 1 percent) stake in Upaid. “Given their record to date, they will now probably try to use this to undermine Upaid from within. But it won’t work. We have the commitment and wherewithal to see this through to the finish.”

Trial is set for early June in the Federal court. “This time next year we expect that Satyam will have to post an extremely large bond if they hope to appeal,” Hunter said. “That will immediately hit their bottom line.”

Hunter pointed out that Satyam’s own filings in the UK admit that “extremely large sums of money are at stake”. Though the exact amount of damages is not yet knowable, Upaid is required to file their damage calculation model with the Federal court within weeks.

“Satyam would help themselves if they started to repair our intellectual property rights that have been put in jeopardy by their wrongful acts,” she said. “The damages grow with every day.”