Serial entrepreneur C. Sivasankaran has made another offer to settle his dues to the Tata Group.
Mr. Sivasankaran made this offer in a letter to N. Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons, with a copy marked to Ratan Tata.
The letter reiterated the settlement money he had proposed in his post-bankruptcy composition offer in June, 2015.
Owes $40 million
According to his estimate, he owed the Tata group $40 million. As part of the earlier post-bankruptcy offer, he had proposed to settle the Tatas by paying a little more than $2 million. “This figure was discussed with the individuals in the Tata Group upper-level management and it was agreed and known to all parties at that time,” he said in the letter. “As part of the post-bankruptcy composition, I agreed to pay the monies due to Tata Group within three years,” he said in the letter.
Mr. Sivasankaran, who is a citizen of the Republic of Seychelles, had filed for bankruptcy under Insolvency Act 2013 (as amended) in Seychelles. Since then, he had settled with Batelco Millennium India Company and Standard Chartered Bank, his major creditors.
According to him, the Tata Group is the only remaining creditor as per his post-bankruptcy composition. Mr. Sivasankaran said that the Supreme Court of Seychelles approved the post-bankruptcy composition in January 2016. “As such, the time to pay the creditors, including the Tata Group, expires on January 22, 2019,” he said.
In his letter, he insisted that any arbitration exercise in this instance would be futile since foreign seated arbitration awards were not enforceable in Seychelles as it “is not a signatory to the U.N.- New York Convention.”
“We can transmit $2,400,000 or would be happy to give a property equivalent to that which is held in the bankruptcy,” Mr. Sivasankaran said in his letter to the Tata Group.
‘Didn’t seek immunity’
Mr. Sivasankaran said that he did not meet any CBI officer anywhere other than in the CBI offices.
Stating that he had been serving as “Ambassador at large” for Seychelles, since August 6, 2016, he insisted he had not sought any immunity as he had not violated any Indian law.
“I have given an undertaking that any time they require my presence, I will make myself available to them.”
Refusing to comment on the specifics of the IDBI loan case against him, he said: “ It is a matter of record that I am neither a shareholder, employee, director of the company that borrowed the fund nor a guarantor of the subject loan.”
