Hyderabad-based consulting and IT services provider, Mahindra Satyam, today said that it has settled claims brought in the Commercial Court in London by Aberdeen Global and twenty-two other funds managed by Aberdeen Asset Management PLC and its subsidiaries that had claimed damages.
The company has entered into a confidential settlement agreement with Aberdeen Asset Management and paid $68 million, Mahindra Satyam said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange.
The claims included certain allegations of fraudulent misrepresentations said to have been made by the former management of the company in London and relied upon by the claimants’ investment manager and communicated in meetings alleged to have taken place in London. The claimants had claimed damages of $298.3 million.
"The out-of-the-court agreement with Aberdeen Global clears all our external litigations and makes way for the company's merger process with Tech Mahindra to a large extent," a top official of Mahindra Satyam told Business Standard.
The Aberdeen settlement leaves Mahindra Satyam (erstwhile Satyam Computer Services Limited) with only two issues now ----- the Enforcement Directorate's order attaching Rs 822 crore fixed funds of the company in various banks and its shareholders petition challenging the merger, which are currently awaiting hearing from Hyderabad courts.
"Today's settlement is a confidential agreement between both the parties (Satyam and Aberdeen). It will be executed in mutually agreed terms and time," the Satyam spokesperson said, while declining to draw any timeline for the settlement of $68 million.
Mahindra Satyam, had in July this year, settled claims by other Aberdeen-affiliated former investors in the US for $12 million.
The company, in 2011, made an out-of-the-court settlement for a class action suit filed by US-based investors on the company's American Depository Shares (ADS) issue for $125 million.
During the same year, Mahindra Satyam had settled a litigation with the US SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) for $10 million.
In December 2009, the company had entered into a settlement agreement with Upaid Systems, a UK-based provider of mobile payment solutions, for $70 million.
