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Indian minister, Ratan Tata, may give evidence in Finmeccanica trial

July 29, 2013 at 07:13 pm IST

MarketScreener.com By

Indian minister, Ratan Tata, may give evidence in Finmeccanica trial

BUSTO ARSIZIO, Italy (Reuters) - Indian defence minister A.K. Antony, together with a former UK defence minister and ex-chairman of Tata Group, have been lined up as witnesses in a trial of former bosses of Italy's Finmeccanica over corruption in a helicopter deal with India.

The trial has raised the prospect that Finmeccanica could be blacklisted in India, the world's largest arms importer and an important growth market for the state-owned aerospace and defence group.

On Monday, a judge in the northern Italian city of Busto Arsizio cleared more than 80 people as possible witnesses, including businessman Ratan N. Tata and former British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon. Those cleared, however, may not be called to testify.

Prosecutors have accused ex-Finmeccanica Chairman Giuseppe Orsi of paying bribes to intermediaries to secure the 560 million euro ($742.81 million) deal in 2010 when he was head of AgustaWestland, the Finmeccanica unit that sold the helicopters.

Bruno Spagnolini, former CEO of AgustaWestland, is being tried alongside Orsi on the same charges. Both deny wrongdoing.

Defence lawyers requested Hoon and Tata to be admitted as witnesses to provide evidence on the defence industry in India. Antony was being called to give testimony on the tendering process in India.

Antony, who has a corruption-free image that sets him apart from many Indian politicians, was defence minister when the Indian Air Force awarded the contract to AgustaWestland.

He is believed to favour blacklisting the firm but could be outvoted by cabinet colleagues who worry it could hamper defence purchases in the future, several government sources said.

The next hearing in the trial will be on Sept 17.

($1 = 0.7539 euros)

(Reporting by Emilio Parodi; Writing by Danilo Masoni; Editing by Louise Heavens)

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Ratan Naval Tata

Ratan Tata is at the head of Tata Group, a conglomerate of hundreds of subsidiaries among these Tata steel, the fourth largest steel company in the world, Tata Motors and Tata Telecom.

He graduated from Cornell University in New York; Ratan declined a proposal from IBM to join the Tata group. He began his career in steel branch of the group, where he stayed until 1971, where he was appointed Director of National Radio & Electronics Company (NELCO), company of the Tata group. In that period the company had met many difficulties, and then he bet on a new technology. In four years, the market share of Nelco rose to 20% from 2%, but this success will be very short.

In 1975 Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister, recession hit the country, the business suffered and social movements paralyzed Nelco’s production. The crisis will be strong as Nelco is forced to close.

In 1977 Ratan was in charge of the textile factory of the group, but the latter still using old technologies and suffered the competition of new factories. Ratan proposed to start a modernize process but the group didn’t give to him a financial support. In 1985, the factory closed.

In 1986 he was appointed chairman of Tata industries, before becoming in 1991 the CEO of Tata group. He began a restructuring process in order to draw seven areas of activity, in add he invited the old managers to leave the place in benefit to younger people.

In 2000 Tata bought Tetley Tea, English tea maker, this is the start of construction of the Tata empire.

In 2007, Tata acquired for $2.6 billion the anglo-dutch group Corus, specialist in steel and aluminium, and his group became the fourth largest steel producer in the world.

In March 2008, he bought two historic brands in the automobile sector, Land Rover and Jaguar for $2.3 billion, and he became the boss of 16000 UK employees. In late 2008, the automotive industry crisis brings down the manufactures’ profits nearly 30%, for this reason Tata decides to ask to Brown’s government to save Tata motors, and he requires a bill out of one billion dollars.

Tata group, it counts now 98 subsidiaries, 300 000 employees and 3.2% of Indian GFP.

In June 2011, the market capitalization of Tata group reached 4.32 trillion rupees, or $87 billion, and it is the first Indian group.

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Tata Teleservices Ltd. Tata Teleservices Ltd. Wireless TelecommunicationsCommunications Tata Teleservices Ltd. provides telecommunications services. It services include mobile services, wireless desktop phones, public booth telephony and wireline data services. The firm also provides Wi-Fi internet services, three-way conferencing and post-paid internet services. Tata Teleservices was founded by Ratan Naval Tata in 1996 and is headquartered in Mumbai, India.	Chairman
Investment Commission of India	Chairman

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