Satyam gets notices for 1,230-cr claims

Mahindra Satyam on Tuesday said it has received legal notices for claims worth Rs 1,230.4 crore from 37 companies, to whom it has replied terming these claims as ?legally untenable?.

?Mahindra Satyam has received legal notices from 37 companies claiming a refund of Rs 1,230.4 crore (about $265 million), allegedly given as a temporary advance,? the firm said in a filing to the stock exchanges.

A Mahindra Satyam spokesperson said the firm had received these notices in the last 7 to 10 days and therefore, the firm has replied immediately to these companies in the last few days. It has now informed the exchanges about the notices.

?The notices claim the money back to allegedly repay their creditors, some of whom include Maytas Properties Ltd and Maytas Infra Ltd,? said the company, which was earlier known as Satyam Computer Services and was later acquired by Mahindra group?s Tech Mahindra.

?On November 14, Mahindra Satyam replied to the legal notices stating that the claims were legally untenable,? the firm said. The ? Satyam?s former chairman Ramalinga Raju confession letter dated January 7, 2009, also refers to net amount of Rs 1,230 crore arranged to the company by the 37 companies,? the firm said.

Earlier in June, while disclosing the financial position for October-December 2008 quarter and the first two months of 2009, Satyam said 37 companies had made claims totalling Rs 1,230 crore to it.

However, at that time, the company had said that it did not acknowledged any of these claims as the matter was under investigation. On June 9, the company had disclosed a total of about Rs 10,000 crore in legal and other claims.

Besides Rs 1,230 crore sought by 37 ?unacknowledged? creditors, these included claims worth about Rs 400 crore related to four overseas acquisitions made under the leadership of its disgraced founder Raju, a $1-billion fraud litigation with British firm Upaid and the class action lawsuits filed by US shareholders over the multi-crore financial scam at the company, with an estimated demand of another $1 billion.