Ukraine crisis: Infosys to move business out of Russia

The company does not do any business with Russian clients today and has no plans of doing so going ahead as well, says CEO Salil Parekh

Indian software behemoth Infosys Ltd joined the corporate boycott of Russia over the invasion of Ukraine, saying it would move its business out of the country and pursue alternate options.

Several other global IT and software players including Oracle Corp and SAP SE have either suspended or paused all operations in Russia.

To a question on the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war on the company's business, CEO Salil Parekh said at a post-earnings press conference, "Given what is going on in the region, we have started to transition all of our work from our centre in Russia to our centres outside Russia." The company has less than 100 employees in Russia, he informed.

"We work with no Russian clients, and the work we do is with a small number of global clients in Russia, for which as I just mentioned, we have started the transition. So at this stage, we have no impact within our business given what is going on from an Infosys perspective," he said.

The company does not do any business with Russian clients today and has no plans of doing so going ahead as well. That said, Infosys as a company would like to see the two sides come together and reach some agreement on peace, Parekh said.

"Once again, we are very much concerned with what is going on at the ground, and we're doing everything we can to help. We're also providing some assistance for reskilling of individuals that are displaced and seeing as they move to other geographies, if they can work in some of our locations in Eastern Europe," he added. 

Recently, Akshata Murty, the daughter of Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy, has announced that she will pay UK taxes on all her income, including from India, to avoid the issue being a “distraction” for her husband – Chancellor Rishi Sunak.

The 42-year-old entrepreneur has been at the centre of days of headlines after it emerged that her non-domiciled status meant she was not legally bound to pay taxes on her overseas income in the UK. Murty owns around 0.9 per cent of Infosys stake and therefore receives millions in dividends from the Indian software services major.

The latest focus on Sunak's wife comes in the wake of attacks last month over Infosys presence in Moscow, while the UK Chancellor imposed economic sanctions and called upon all UK businesses to end their Russian dealings over the conflict in Ukraine. In a BBC podcast last month, the 41-year-old minister had spoken out about his anger at his wife and her father being targeted.

"It's very upsetting and, I think, wrong for people to try and come at my wife, and you know, beyond that actually, with regard to my father-in-law, for whom I have nothing but enormous pride and admiration for everything that he's achieved. And no amount of attempted smearing is going to make me change that because he's wonderful and has achieved a huge amount, as I said, I'm enormously proud of him," he said.