Date: 23 Oct 2012
DLF-Vadra and their defenders with cooked books\\\\\\\ By Premendra Agrawal at October 21, 2012 22:57\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ DLF Chairman said transactions with Robert Vadra are on the company’s book means cooked books.. Vadra is a private person according to the Minister Chidambaram. After the call of UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi all top leaders, the Union Ministers even constitutional authorities as Governor of Karnatak are coming into the defense of Vadra on the basis of cooked books . Indirectly Prime Minister and Chairman of the Press Council of India have also defended them by attacking others. It shows that all are devoted to one Gandhi family.\\\\\\\\\\\\ People hope that DLF does not follow the path of the Italy's giant- Parmalat. \\\\\\\\ Parmalat, Italy's giant dairy foods producer, was founded in 1961 by Calisto Tanzi, a 22 year-old college dropout and Italian food industry heir. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ On the surface, all seemed at least reasonably well with Parmalat through 2002. In addition to many individual shareholders, Parmalat had a number of well-regarded institutional investors and creditors, a solid credit rating and even listed securities in the United States. However, as we will discuss shortly, there were important warning signals of troubles ahead. C \\\\\\\\\ On December 19, the biggest corporate scam in European history was unveiled when Bank of America announced and Parmalat confirmed that a €3.95 billion account that Parmalat claimed to have at the Bank simply did not exist. About a week later, Tanzi, who admitted to taking over €500 million for himself and his other businesses, was jailed in Milan's overcrowded San Vittore prison, albeit, reportedly, in his own cell with his own shower and a little camping stove to cook food. T \\\\\\\\\\\\ On December 24, 2003, Parmalat S.p.A. filed for bankruptcy protection with a court in Parma, Italy, the largest bankruptcy in European history. \\\\\\\\\\\\\ For years, Parmalat hid its losses, overstated its assets, recorded non-existent assets, understated its debt and diverted cash to Tanzi family members. The firm created over 260 foreign entities such as Bonlat, its Cayman Islands subsidiary to dump its non-performing and fictitious assets and to hide its debts. Interestingly, much of the fraud went undetected for as long as 13 years. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ Parmalat's business interests were far-flung, extending into travel and sports businesses and well beyond the areas of competence of its founder and his family. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ Parmalat was a publicly held Milan Stock Exchange listed firm with ADRs traded in the U.S. How could such a large international firm, with such a large following of investors and analysts be so deceptive in such a large way? When the scandal broke, Parmalat had a governance structure that was practically a recipe for a corporate meltdown. First, consider that Parmalat was Tanzi family-dominated, with Calisto Tanzi serving for many years as C.E.O. until he resigned when the scandal broke, Tanzi, his family and affiliate firms controlled the major blocks of votes in Parmalat. Tanzi founded the firm and used it and its outside suppliers of capital to build himself an empire for himself and his family. At the time of the firm's collapse, Tanzi served on Parmalat's Board of Directors, as did his son Stefano who also served as the president of the 5Parmalat-owned Parma Calcio football team. The Board also included Tanzi's brother Giovanni and his niece Paola Visconti. Other board members included the company's CFO Fausto Tonna, who was deeply involved in the fraud and three other firm managers, Luciano Del Soldato, Alberto Ferraris and Francesco Giuffredi, all hired by Tanzi. The outside directors were Tanzi's attorney and two of Tanzi’s close friends. Tanzi's daughter Francesca apparently ran Parmatours, one of the family tourism businesses, another of Parmalat's major money-losers that owned Club Vacanze with its nine beach and four Alps resorts. She denied running the firm after her arrest. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ Tanzi clearly was the driving force exercising almost complete control over the company, inserting his own people in every position of power and in positions to oversee those who held power. For example, CFO Tonna, who confessed that he had forged Band of America documents for the €3.95 billion account using a scanner, scissors and glue, was also a member of the Parmalat board three-member audit committee. That is, Tonna was appointed to a position with responsibility to oversee his own operations and to ensure that he did not steal from or mislead the company's investors. He was, in effect, his own monitor. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ A number of high profile cases of governance failure led to executives being accused of activities such as stealing, improperly diverting funds and lying to investors to receive more money. In one such case, L. Dennis Kozlowski, former CEO of Tyco International and his CFO \\\\\\\\\\\\\\ Mark H. Swartz was accused of stealing $150 million from their employer by secretly forgiving loans that they received. They were also accused of misappropriating millions more through other improper means and selling stock after lying about the company’s condition. Kozlowski’s case attracted substantial attention due to his lavish spending, apparently including around $11m of the company’s money on furnishing his Fifth Avenue apartment, including a $6,000 gold threaded shower curtain, a $4,000 tablecloth and a $515 toaster. He was also said to have thrown a $2m birthday party for his wife in Italy with company money. When questioned by his criminal prosecutor, Ann Donnelly during his criminal trial about compensation that was omitted on his 1999 IRS Form W-2, he testified that he did not notice that $25 million was missing. This omission had if not been discovered, might have saved him $17.5 million on his income taxes. \\\\\\\\ Comment may be sent at: premendraagrawal@gmail.com \\\\\\\\\\\ =========================== 000000000 Be the first to rate this post Currently .0/5 Stars.12345Tags: Cooked books, DLF Vadra and their defenders, Gandhi, Parmalat, Tanzi family, Italy, Dennis Kozlowski Comments (0)E-mailKick it!DZone it!del.icio.usPermalinkPost RSS Dishonoring Supreme Court in Gujarat Election Campaign and in defending Vadra By Premendra Agrawal at October 20, 2012 23:38 Filed Under: The Supreme Court on Oct 9, 2012 expressed its displeasure over the comments reportedly made by Union Law Minister Salman Khurshid that putting businessmen behind bars would affect foreign investment in the country. Did Khurshid say in the defense of Jagan Mohan, son of the Congress Chief Minister of Andhra or the national son in law Roberet Vadra? On October 10, The Indian Express quoted Mr. Khurshid as saying: “What will affect the functioning of the government is if other institutions do not understand the kind of political economy we are faced with today: what is needed to encourage growth and investment? If you lock up top businessmen, will investment come?” Is this not dishonoring of Supreme Court? Now today Oct 20, 2012 news is: Gujarat Congress asked the state electoral officer to train guns on the BJP rather than on traders over unaccounted money. Talking to reporters, Gujarat Pradesh Congress chief Arjun Modhwadia said the State Electoral Officer and his team were harassing traders. "The officer should in fact investigate the dealings of BJP and its 'dhan sangrah', where the party and chief minister Narendra Modi illegally extorted money." <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--> <!--[endif]--> Is statement of Gujarat Congress for only BJP Narendra Modi or for Sonia Gandhi and her son-in-law Robert Vadra also? Both news are unconstitutional and should be treated as the dishonor of Supreme Court. After Sonia Gandhi’s call Congress leaders and the ministers of the government making competition in showing loyalty towards the Sonia Gandhi by coming into the defense of Robert Vadra whose business transaction are the example of Kleptocracy ============================