| | | Question of the Week In 2020, Germany’s Bayer agreed to pay a whopping amount to settle tens of thousands of claims which alleged that its herbicide, Roundup, had caused cancer. What was the size of the settlement? | | |  | Here's a great value proposition A digital subscription to Mint premium can be yours at just ₹213 per month. Check out the convenient and affordable plans we have for you here. | | Good Morning | | The News in Summary Three subsidiaries of consumer goods giant Dabur faced a series of cases in the US and Canada from consumers who alleged that the company’s hair care products had caused cancer. Meanwhile, amid delays to its merger with Zee, Japanese entertainment giant Sony Pictures began talks to acquire Walt Disney’s India business while two proxy advisory firms advised shareholders to vote against a resolution seeking to induct Mukesh Ambani’s youngest son Anant on the board of Reliance Industries. Elsewhere, there was some relief for SpiceJet after it reached a temporary settlement with one of the lessors suing the budget airline. Finally, Bank of Baroda took action against staff members who were involved in fraud related to registering customers on its Bob World app, while RBI approved the appointment of Ashok Vaswani as managing director and CEO of Kotak Mahindra Bank. | | |  | | | | Dabur Subsidiaries Hit by Lawsuits in the US Three subsidiaries of Dabur India, Namaste Laboratories LLC (“Namaste”), Dermoviva Skin Essentials Inc. (“Dermoviva”), and Dabur International Ltd. (“DINTL”), have been hit by a series of lawsuits in the US and Canada following allegations by consumers that the company’s hair products caused ovarian cancer and uterine cancer. The Multi-District Litigation cases (MDLs) are in the pleadings and early discovery phases, which allow parties to challenge the adequacy of the plaintiffs’ complaints. The subsidiaries have denied any liability and are contesting these allegations, claiming they are based on unsubstantiated and incomplete study, according to an exchange filing. The development comes at a time when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has proposed banning certain hair straightening products containing formaldehyde, saying that they are linked to hormone-related cancers and can cause “long-term adverse health effects. For Dabur, the news caps a tough week when it received a goods and services tax (GST) demand notice of Rs 320.6 crore from the Gurugram Zonal Unit of the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI). | | | | As Zee Merger Deal Gets Delayed, Sony Eyes Disney’s India Business  The Zee Entertainment-Sony Pictures merger, announced in December 2021, is expected to be delayed further despite the deal receiving approval from the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in August 2023. According to a statement from the company, while the transaction was expected to close by the end of the first half of the fiscal year ending on 31 March, 2024, based on the latest progress, that date is likely to be pushed back. As a backup plan, the Japanese corporation has initiated talks with Walt Disney Co. about a potential acquisition of its India business, which comprises more than 70 multilingual TV channels and the popular Disney+Hotstar online streaming service. Several other parties, including Reliance Industries (the owner of Viacom18), the Adani Group, and Sun TV Network, are said to be in the fray for the acquisition, either in full or in part, of Disney’s Indian business, which is now valued at a fraction of its previous value. | | | | | | | | Proxy Firms Advise Against Voting For Anant Ambani’s Appointment to RIL Board  Proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) has recommended that shareholders vote against a proposal to appoint the 28-year-old Anant Ambani, the youngest son of Mukesh Ambani, to the board of the family-controlled Reliance Industries (RIL). The advisory is based on Anant Ambani’s “limited leadership/board experience of around six years” which according to ISS “raises concerns on his potential contribution to the board.” Earlier, another proxy firm, the Mumbai-based Institutional Investor Advisory Services (IIAS), also said that “at 28 years of age,” appointment of the young Ambani scion “does not align with our voting guidelines.” Both firms have, however, backed the board appointments of Anant’s twin-elder siblings, Isha and Akash Ambani — both 31 — in the shareholder vote that will close on 26 October. However, another international proxy firm, Glass Lewis, is in favour of Anant’s appointment. The appointments are a critical part of chairman Mukesh Ambani’s succession plan for the $190 billion conglomerate, which is aggressively pushing into new businesses like green energy. | | | | Temporary Relief for SpiceJet SpiceJet, which faces legal challenges in several courts, reached an interim settlement with Engine Lease Finance BV, one of the lessors suing the budget airline. Under the settlement terms, SpiceJet must pay over $2 million to the engine lessor by January and return the leased engines by 25 January. Four of the airline’s lessors have filed cases against SpiceJet in the NCLT over pending dues even as it negotiates an arbitral award execution case with former owner Kalanithi Maran over dues of Rs 397 crore. The 18-year-old airline was also thrown into a quandary when news emerged that a new company—Sirius India Airlines Pvt. Ltd— had been floated by spouses of two of its key executives, chief operating officer Arun Kashyap and chief commercial officer Shilpa Bhatia. SpiceJet denied any role in its creation and also said that the new company cannot get into any business without the consent of the airline. | | | | Bank of Baroda Acts on App Fraud After RBI Strictures  A week after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) asked Bank of Baroda (BoB) to immediately suspend further onboarding of customers onto its mobile app ‘Bob World’, the public sector bank suspended a clutch of employees after an internal audit accepted that serious lapses had occurred in the process. The number of staffers suspended wasn’t clear, though one report put it at 60. Last week, the central bank took notice of an investigation by The Reporters’ Collective, which revealed that the bank’s staff conspired to link bogus mobile numbers with customers’ accounts to fraudulently sign them up on the app to meet aggressive internal targets. While the app’s base of activated users grew from 19.6 million in FY22 to 30 million in FY23, many of these additions were customers who had no inkling that their accounts had been linked since the bank’s employees used their own numbers, or in some cases those of family, friends and even security and sanitation staff. | | |  | | | | Ashok Vaswani to Succeed Uday Kotak as CEO and MD of Kotak Mahindra Bank Two months after its founder, Uday Kotak, stepped down from his position as managing director and CEO of Kotak Mahindra Bank, the Reserve Bank of India approved the appointment of an external candidate, Ashok Vaswani, as his successor. Vaswani was earlier CEO at Citigroup Asia Pacific and has previously served as the Chief Executive Officer of Barclays Bank, UK. Last month, in a surprising move, Kotak resigned from his position three months ahead of schedule. As an interim arrangement, Dipak Gupta, the joint managing director, filled in for him. Vaswani’s extensive international experience furthers the storied bank’s recent strategy of adding global talent to its India team. | | | | Kotak Mahindra Bank’s new CEO is a veteran banker whose last job was as president of Pagaya Technologies, a fintech company. In an interview with Fintech Insider, Ashok Vaswani discusses his three decades across senior positions at Citigroup and Barclays, as well as his thoughts on digitalization in banking. | | | | Last Word What a difference five months can make. In May, S&P Global downgraded Masayoshi Son-led SoftBank Group into junk territory after the group sold down its stake in Alibaba. But the stellar debut of its star investee, chip designer Arm, on its Nasdaq listing seems to have turned the fortunes of the billionaire investor. SoftBank could soon book a robust profit on its investment in Zomato, in which it had invested through its fund-SVF Growth (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. After selling at least 1.1% stake in the food-delivery and restaurant-discovery firm for around Rs 1,020 crore, the Japanese fund is planning to sell its remaining 1.15% stake in Zomato over the next several weeks. This follows the dramatic rise in the price of Zomato’s shares over the past year, from Rs 62 to Rs 111. | | | | Answer to the Question Bayer agreed to pay more than $10 billion to settle an estimated 95,000 claims, which linked its weedkiller Roundup to cases of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Ironically, Bayer inherited the case from Monsanto, which it had acquired in 2018 after paying $63 billion. | | | Do you have any questions? Send in your queries to sundeepkkhanna@gmail.com Were you forwarded this email? Did you stumble upon it online? Sign up here. | | Written by Sundeep Khanna. Edited by Saikat Chatterjee. Produced by Shad Hasnain. 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