Biggest Business battles of 2012

The 2012 has been action-packed in the world of business and finance which had all the elements of what it takes to make a blockbuster. The main characters involved all - the government, people and even the “aam janata”. Here are few business scams and battles that India has witnessed this year.

1. Is Infosys losing its charm?

It seem to be a loosing battle for software giant Infosys. Lately Infosys has been lacking behind to achieve the target results. Again for the second time Cognizant Technology Solutions has claimed higher revenue than Infosys. On one hand while Cognizant look forward to have $7.34 billion revenue, on the other hand Infosys is likely to wind up with $7.18 billion revenue this year.

While everyone is looking out for a reason behind the low results, some say it is due to lack of few senior officials over the years. Infosys has also been left back by its competitors TCS and HCL Technologies along with Cognizant.

2. SEBI Vs Sahara

Severe jolt to Sahara Group, strict scrutiny of mining activities and scrapping of licenses for 2G spectrum dominated the corporate legal battle in 2012 in the Supreme Court which gave a decisive victory to telecom major Vodafone in an 11,000 crore tax case.

Supreme Court stated the transaction between Vodafone and Hong Kong based Hutchison Group falls out of the tax jurisdiction of the Indian tax authorities.

On other front, it was a lost battle for Sahara Group which on August 31 was directed to refund around 24, 000 crore to their investors within three months with 15 per cent interest per annum.

The apex court said that if the companies Sahara India Real Estate Corporation (SIREC) and Sahara Housing Investment Corporation (SHIC) fail to refund the amount then SEBI can attach properties and freeze bank accounts of the companies.

As per an earlier Supreme Court order dated August 31, the two companies were asked to submit the investor documents by November 10, while the money was to be refunded to the investors within three months.

3. Service Tax and Central Excise Duty

Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) said that there over 10,300 cases of fraud involving over 19, 159 crore in service tax and central excise duty during 2008-11.

The audit scrutiny revealed that Department of Revenue raised a demand of 7, 654.23 crore in central excise and only recovered 328.67 crore (4.29 per cent) out of it. "Similarly, out of a penalty of 320.85 crore (in central excise) that was imposed, the department could recover only 0.94 crore (0.29 per cent)," it said. In service tax also, the CAG observed the department raised a demand of 9, 905.84 crore and recovered only 2, 706 crore (27.32 per cent).

In the audit report of central excise CAG mentioned 17 cases involving uneven advantage and consumption of cenvat credit revenue worth 25.36 crore.

4. Ministry of External Affairs gift scandal

The protocol division was asked for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) check out by Ministry of external affairs after suspected irregularity in the attainment of gifts. MEA charged the protocol department of buying sub standard gifts at low costs which are to be presented to higher officials, prime ministers and presidents of other countries.

The Right to Information Act (RTI) unfolded that MEA wanted CBI to a detailed investigation. However, MEA did not disclose all the documents stating that it might effect the investigation. The investigation took many high officials in the protocol division of the MEA into suspicion.

5. Apple Vs Samsung

If you often get into an argument comparing which one is batter, apple i phone or the Samsung Galaxy Smartphone, ask the phone companies it self. It started from a 2011 meeting where Apple founder Steve Jobs accused Samsung executives for copying few apple i phone features. Apple also took legal action against Samsung involving patent encroachment.

The U.S. jury verdict in 2012 favored Apple and ordered Samsung to pay $1.05 billion to Apple as damages. And the battle doesn’t seem to wind up. To an existing lawsuit against Samsung Apple added the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system to the list.

6. No “likes” for Facebook

The decision of avoiding trading hordes for long has turned out to be a big mistake for Mark leaving him with no option but to take Facebook public. The year 2012 doesn’t seem to be acclamatory for Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. 

The long awaited public offering was bumped up by problems as Nasdaq had system malfunctioning in the very first hour. The sale of the Facebook shares were delayed by around thirty minutes leaving the shareholders completely with no idea of how many shares overall were being apprehended, what prices had been attained.

Though Facebook achieved $16 billion of new cash but unfortunately it couldn’t fetch too many “shares” as it was expected.  Also, the price offered was 11 percent higher than the initial offering and raised the price by $45.

A bunch of the company shareholders also filed a lawsuit against Facebook complaining that many of the secret information were leaked to big banks prior to the IPO.