Satyam to replace US lawyer

Mahindra Satyam has requested a district court in the US, where it is facing law suits, to allow the company to change its law firm.

The Indian software-service provider has requested the district judge, Ms Barbara Jones, in New York that it may be allowed to replace Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz by Jones Day.

The reasons for the switch are not immediately known but the Wachtell partner, Mr Warren Stern, and the Satyam executive vice- chairman, Mr Vineet Nayyar, have mutually agreed to the counsel substitution.

Wachtell Lipton, founded in 1965, is a New York-based firm and is considered to be the most profitable law firm.

Satyam was hit by an accounting fraud early this year after its founder, Mr B. Ram-alinga Raju, admitted to financial irregularities involving Rs 8,000 crore. Investors in India and the US filed several lawsuits in what has turned out to be one of India’s most biggest corporate fraud cases.

These cases in the US have been consolidated into one complaint in a Manhattan-based federal court. Satyam is expected to respond by mid-October.

After the scam came to light, Satyam shares plummeted both in India and the US. The company was later acquired by Tech Mahindra, through a government-arranged auction. —

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