New Delhi: Former owners of Ranbaxy Laboratories Malvinder Singh and Shivinder Mohan Singh, have been asked by a Singapore court to pay damages worth $400 million (over Rs 2,500 crore) to Japan's Daiichi Sankyo Co. The fine has been imposed for supposedly concealing and misrepresenting facts from Japanese drug giant, Daiichi Sankyo, when they had sold the 35 per cent stake for $2.4 billion (over 1.5 crore) in 2008.
Daiichi Sankyo, exited the company in April 2014 by selling it to home-grown multinational Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, after filling the case in 2013 in Singapore. It had accused the Singh brothers of “concealment and misrepresentation of facts” after Ranbaxy paid $500 million to the US Department of Justice (DoJ) as settlement for misrepresenting facts.
In an agreement made between Daiichi Sankyo and the former promoters of Ranbaxy in 2008, said that any future arbitration related to the deal would be pursued in Singapore, in accordance with commercial arbitration rules.
Also read: No Damage To N-Reactor Container : IAEA
The dispute was between Daiichi Sankyo and sellers of shares of erstwhile Ranbaxy Laboratories, which includes RHC Holding and Oscar Investments.
RHC Holding said in a statement, “The arbitration tribunal has issued an award by a majority of 2:1 in favour of the claimant for damages of an amount of R2562.78 crore, with Justice AM Ahmadi, former Chief Justice of India giving a dissenting opinion dismissing all claims of the claimant.”
In 2008, Daiichi Sankyo had bought the entire 34.82 per cent stake in Ranbaxy from its promoters in a $4.6-billion deal. After five years in 2013, Ranbaxy had to pay a fine of $500 million to the US authorities after it was found guilty to misrepresenting data to get fast drug approvals.
Then in 2014, Sun Pharma agreed to buy Ranbaxy - which was then controlled by Daiichi, the deal was made for $4-billion, which included a debt of $800 million.
At present, Malvinder Singh owns a majority stake in Fortis Healthcare - which runs 30 hospitals in India. He also partially owns Fortis Healthworld - a pharmacy chain, Religare - a financial services company, SRL Diagnostics - a diagnostics chain and more. Shivinder Mohan Singh on the other hand has stepped down from his executive role in the companies in September 2015, and joined Radha Soami Satsang Beas, an Amritsar-based spiritual organisation.
