Relatives of RSSB guru Gurinder Singh fined $400 million for hiding business facts

It's a fascinating soap opera, how billionaire nephews of guru Gurinder Singh are entangled with the Indian spiritual organization that he heads -- Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB).

Gurinder Singh's family earned about $250 million from shares of Religare Enterprises they paid about $3 million for, as I described in "Radha Soami Satsang Beas' guru makes $254 million."

Those shares came from Malvinder Singh, who is the guru's nephew. Malvinder's brother is Shivinder Singh. They formed Religare after selling their stake in Ranbaxy Laboratories to Japan’s Daaichi Sankyo Company.

A few years ago, Guru Gurinder Singh's son became CEO of Religare Health Trust, a wholly owned subsidiary of Religare Enterprises. As I said in this post, "Religare is a company that Malvinder and Shivinder Singh invested heavily in after selling their stake in Ranbaxy, a pharmaceutical company. So the money gifted to the guru and his family is rooted in previous Ranbaxy holdings."

Which gets us to a story in the Economic Times that was emailed to me recently.

It describes how Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, the guru's nephews, have been fined $400 million for concealing and misrepresenting facts about Ranbaxy from the eventual purchaser of that company, Daaichi. 

Former Ranbaxy promoters Malvinder and Shivinder Mohan Singh fined Rs 2,600 cr for hiding facts from Daiichi

By Arun Kumar, ET Bureau|

5 May, 2016, 03.16PM IST

Daiichi had filed the arbitration case in 2013 in Singapore and had accused the Indian promoters of concealment and misrepresented facts.

NEW DELHI: Malvinder Mohan Singh and Shivinder Mohan Singh, the erstwhile promoters of Ranbaxy Laboratories suffered a major setback earlier this week when the Singapore Court of Arbitration awarded about Rs 2,600 crore ($400) million fine for concealing and misrepresenting facts from Japanese pharmaceutical company Daiichi Sankyo when they sold the promoters' stake for $2.4 billion in 2008.

Daiichi had filed the arbitration case in 2013 in Singapore. It had accused the Indian promoters of concealment and misrepresented facts. The Japanese company had sought compensation for losses that it was forced to pay the US Department of Justice.

The arbitration order is a major setback on Malvinder Mohan Singh. His Younger brother Shivinder Mohan Singh has already stepped down from the executive role of group companies and had joined the Radha Soami Satsang Beas, a philosophical and spiritual organization that is well-known in Punjab and headquartered near the Amritsar.

Malvinder Mohan Singh could not be reached.

In May 2013, Ranbaxy, under the management control of Daiichi, was forced to reach a $500-million settlement with the US Department of Justice in May accusations that the company faked test results to get approval from the Food and Drug Administration for its medicines.

The US subsidiary of Ranbaxy pleaded guilty to seven felonies relating to the manufacture and distribution of certain adulterated drugs made at units in India and agreed to pay the money to settle criminal and legal suits.

In 2014, Daiichi, that has spent over nearly $4 billion to acquire about 58% stake in Ranbaxy finally decided to exit from the company. In April 2014, it decided to merge Ranbaxy with home grown multinational Sun Pharma. The merger was completed in March 2015.

This story appears to have been replaced on the Economic Times website by an updated story, "Malvinder and Shivinder Mohan Singh to contest arbitration panel order on damages to Daiichi."

NEW DELHI: Malvinder Mohan Singh and Shivinder Mohan Singh will challenge the order of an arbitration panel that asked them to pay Rs 2,562.78 crore in damages to Daiichi Sankyo. In a majority ruling this week, the three member panel in Singapore said the brothers hid key info while selling their controlling stake in Ranbaxy Lab to the Japanese company in 2008.

...The arbitration order is a major setback for Malvinder Mohan Singh. His younger brother, Shivinder Mohan Singh, isn't associated with the family business now and has joined the Radha Soami Satsang Beas, a philosophical and spiritual organisation that is well known in Punjab and is headquartered near Amritsar.

Yes, in 2015 Shivinder Singh announced that he was going to be engaged full-time with Radha Soami Satsang Beas, which I wrote about in "Billionaire Shivinder Singh plans to volunteer for Indian guru." Here's how I ended the post about Singh's stated desire to request seva, or selfless service, at RSSB.

I strongly suspect that Shivinder Singh, like almost all RSSB sevadars, considers that he will be earning good karma and God's/guru's grace through his seva. Otherwise, why wouldn't he do some sort of other volunteer work, given how many unmet needs there are in India that he could help fulfill?

Understand: I'm not criticizing his decision to stop being a businessman and start being a sevadar at RSSB's spiritual community in the Punjab known as the Dera. That's up to him. During my time as a RSSB member, I knew other people who did the same thing -- become full-time volunteers at the Dera.

I'm just saying this: seva is simply volunteer work. It's no different from what countless people do without pay every day all around the world. Giving it a special name doesn't make it special.  

I'm pretty sure this isn't the last we've heard from the Singh brothers, or other people involved with the tangled web of relationships between Religare, Ranbaxy, Radha Soami Satsang Beas, the Daiichi lawsuit, and guru Gurinder Singh.

Like I said, its fascinating stuff. 

Comments

[Neon]

It all makes sense! That's why he left the company to do "seva". JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZZZZ

I love how the old satsangs said to not even sit by non-veg during lunch time, just to move away from them. But now they house these scum in the very same home.

[JJ]

Used to read all this & wonder what sense to make of it - useless waste of time that was! I'll never know any of these people & what it's like to have not just £500 quid in the bank but 5mill+. And do I really care? But at the same time, I also have to admit that, at the end of the day, I got what I went for when I sought initiation. And that - as it worked out for me since being so attached to the body/form/physical - was as simple as the simran/japa/mantra, call it what you want. That was what I needed to get the ball-rolling. Others may need other things. So all the rest of this monkey business, does it really matter? If we continue to give it credence, even bother about figuring it out, then will we just be wasting even more of our precious time? Or are we wiser to just dump this rubbish right now ... consign it straightaway to the category of wasting-our-time-with-their-shinanigans/steering-us-right off-course & so stick it, asap, into the same pot Indian sage Jiddu Krishnamurti's indicates in his little story @ the Truth; you'll all know this one:

THE TRUTH
Once Satan and his demon sidekick were walking down the street closely watching a man 20 yards ahead who was on the verge of realizing the Supreme Truth. The demon grew worried and began to nudge Satan. But Satan looked quite calm.
Sure enough, the man did, in fact, soon realize the deepest spiritual Truth. Yet Satan still did nothing about it.

With this, the demon nudged Satan harder and, getting no response, finally blurted out: Satan! Don’t you see? That man has realized the Truth! And yet you are doing nothing to stop him! With that, Satan cunningly smiled and announced,
'Yes, he has realized the Truth. And now I am going to help him organize the Truth!

[Dogribb]

Brian cant seem to get my email to work to send you this.Here is one Charan's initiates.Thought you might enjoy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYmLyUyKSzg

[Samuel]

I'm pretty sure that Shivinder is the next in line for being named the Guru. After all, it's a family business. He will simply return to the original business. Ranbaxy, Religare, etc. were practice. The real money, the funds which are donated by blind worshippers, is in RSSB Inc.

Mark my words. The succession plan has begun. Especially because we now know that Mr. Gurinder Dhillon had a bout with health issues.

[Anuradha K]

:) What I see here is that you have not left RSSB actually you are more obsessed and well I guess by remembering the Master, you are indirectly getting his grace....very smart of you...keep it up......
you are like those who try to provoke people to go anti anything.........and you subconsciously follow it...Kudos......

[Nishant Chandila]

Samuel will you follow the path again if your prophecy goes wrong?

[Neon]

Regardless of who the next "master" is, its still family business. Everyone prior was related, ofcourse they want to keep this in the family.