Court Upholds Compounding Of Ril Offences

On one occasion, Thipsay told the RIL counsel, It seems as though you are pressing for the compounding of offences to try and get the case out of the courts.''

The RoC, who had filed the 29 complaints, remained silent right through proceedings and did not press on the charges that there was an `intention to defraud'. According to RoC R Vasudevan, he did not press for this as the court had to decide on a limited issue of whether to allow for compounding of offences or not. Once the CLB had taken its decision, the RoC could not move against it, he said.

 

Barneviks formula for dealing with change

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wave of skill formation in which Poles and Czechs acquire skills in the same way as Singapore has already and India and Brazil are acquiring. These then become regional technology transfer agents. For example, Brazilian experts impart skills to Chile, Singapore to China and India to the rest of Asia after the NICs. It is Polish and Czech experts who go to Russia and Uzbekistan, not expatriates from the west. These two rounds of skill transfer are set apart from the conventional first wave of the eighties and nineties which involved north-south (Americans) and east-west (Europe) arrangements.

In this global scheme of ABB, said Barnevik, India occupies a key position. It is important both for its domestic potential and a second-stage skill transfer agent, whereby it picks up the requisite business and manufacturing culture and passes it on. India's new economic policies create a growth potential which ABB wishes to use in making it an engine of export to the rest of Asia and elsewhere. India as a partner for third countries provides a good platform for growing R&D ABB's first Indian research centre has been set up in Bangalore.

ABB's own global plan revolves round correcting the present mismatch between where capacity is located (developed economies) and where most fresh demand is located (Asia and Latin America). Hence it has shed 54,000 jobs in the former and created 46,000 jobs in the latter. In 1991 the eastern hemisphere, accounted for 10 per cent of ABB's business; by 2000 this will be a third. By 2010 the company's major business are likely to be in the USA, Germany, India, China, Italy, Sweden - in that order.

This reorganisation of global business does not come easy for the developed countries which have to shed low skill jobs. Even the developing countries cannot stand still and enjoy their low cost advantage. Poland, which first went down the labour intensive route, is now into systems engineering. Singapore has traversed this route quite a bit. It is now costlier to manufacture in Korea than in the UK.

In a reversal of a key global concept, Barnevik redefined the white man's burden as the "high wages in industrial countries" which are exporting jobs. He readily acknowledged that "non-tariff barriers are an evil that we have, unfortunately even offer Gatt." Social and environmental dumping are "hidden barriers building up in the west".

How has ABB coped with this change? In its management organisation, "We are light years away from where we were seven years ago". It has managed to get rid of bureaucracy, move decision-making down and work across borders. "We went too far and so are merging some operations now without losing transparency."