Interim report on Satyam fraud ready, officials say

(‘PTI’ contributed to this story)

Suitors seeking to take over the company will not be able to go through the restated financial statement or the third quarter results prior to the bidding: Karnik

Hyderabad: A 12-member team of the Serious Frauds Investigation Office (SFIO) has prepared an interim report on its probe into the Rs7,136 crore accounting fraud by the promoters of Satyam Computer Services Ltd, said persons assisting the SFIO in its probe.
“The interim report, based on the outcome of SFIO teams’ questioning of five key accused in the fraud now under judicial custody in Chanchalguda Central Prison in Hyderabad, is being sent to the Union ministry of corporate affairs,” said a person assisting the probe, who did not want to be named. A local court on Friday permitted SFIO to question the accused.
Selling strategy: Satyam president Kiran Karnik. Hemant Mishra / MintThe founder of Satyam B. Ramalinga Raju was arrested on 9 January, two days after he confessed to the country’s biggest corporate scam. His brother, Rama Raju, managing director then, was also held. Vadlamani Srinivas, then chief financial officer, was picked up two days later. Subsequently the police arrested two auditors of Price Waterhouse, S. Gopalakrishnan and Srinivas Talluri, who audited the accounts of the software company from 2000.
Meanwhile, a World Bank official said it could review the eight-year ban imposed on Satyam, provided the firm takes “corrective action”.
“The vendor would have to demonstrate (that) corrective action had been taken to address the original causes of the... ineligibility,” the official said in an email from Washington.
In New Delhi, Satyam’s chairman Kiran Karnik said the suitors seeking to take over the company will not be able to go through the restated financial statement or the third quarter results prior to the bidding.
“Obviously...(the bidders would not be able to see them as these documents would not be prepared by then). Considering the nature and extent of the fraud, it will take quite some time to make them. The bidders will have to go by their judgement of the company and its intrinsic value and they all know what is the position of the company,” Karnik said.