~EDWARD $TEVEN$ON EXPRE$$~

[ericwright]

GM E Express! Looks like no country is untouched corrupt clowns like these :

Satyam: 'India's Enron'
Posted Jan 7th 2009 6:47PM by Peter Cohan
Filed under: India, Scandals

Satyam Computer Services (NYSE: SAY) has not opened for trading today but it was down 91% in "pre-market." When you hear why, you'll realize that Satyam could be India's version of Enron. There were glimmers of trouble a few weeks ago when Satyam's chairman, Ramalinga Raju, unilaterally decided to buy his son's construction companies -- Maytas Properties Ltd. and Maytas Infra Ltd -- but when the stock collapsed after the announcement, he pulled back within 12 hours.

While that was bad enough, the biggest shocker came today when Raju resigned after announcing that he had faked Satyam's numbers for several years. It turns out that the reason he wanted to buy those construction companies was to plug the $1.03 billion gap between the falsely accounted for and real cash on Satyam's books.

Here's an irony: the word Satyam means "truth" in Sanskrit. And when the truth came out, Satyam got into a rapidly cascading wave of troubles. First, shareholders blocked his asset purchases, then the World Bank banned Satyam from bidding for orders for eight years, alleging that improper benefits were given to World Bank employees. Then four directors quit, and finally, Raju quit the company and announced his fraud.

Guess who the London-based World Council for Corporate Governance gave the Golden Peacock Global Award for Excellence in Corporate Governance last September? None other than Raju.

So I would add Raju to this list of five Harvard MBAs who wrecked the global economy -- one of whom is Jeff Skilling, former Enron CEO.