IN THE DOCK: Former Siemens manager Reinhard Siekaczek (Reuters)

In the US, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) frequently scrutinises US multinational firms for any violation of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. A 2007 SEC order stated that about $200,000 worth of improper payments and gifts were paid to Indian government officials from 1996 to 2001 by Dow’s then fifth-tier subsidiary, DeNocil Crop Protection, which was later renamed as Dow Agrosciences India (DAI).

Interestingly, no government regulator chose to take action against Dow’s Indian subsidiary.

Documents with BW reveal unlisted DAI’s recent financials as of March 2007. A paid-up equity capital of Rs 61.83 crore owned almost entirely by Mauritius-based Dow Agrosciences Agricultural Products, and a net profit of Rs 39.53 crore.

GLOBAL NEWS

TELECOM
Why China 3G Is Smarter

India and China are rolling out third-generation (3G) mobile phone technology at the same time. But China has outsmarted India by creating its own 3G standard — Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access or TD-SCDMA, a derivative of US-based Qualcomm’s CDMA technology. India has left it open to GSM and CDMA technologies.

An indigenous 3G standard gives Chinese hardware firms a headstart in deploying 3G products. Huawei Technologies has already developed products in association with Siemens. But there’s a bigger benefit. “The Chinese have ensured that a part of the royalty they would give to Qualcomm will stay in their country,” says N.K. Goyal, founder of Communications and Manufacturing Association of India. The way it works is this: Chinese firms will pay royalty to Qualcomm for CDMA, and foreign firms that sell products or services in China based on TD-SCDMA will pay royalty to the Chinese. That’s ‘smart’ technology for you.

M. Rajendran

NO STONES UNTURNED: Security has been beefed up in Beijing, the host city for Olympics 2008, after the deadly terrorist attack on 4 August that saw 16 Chinese policemen dead. China has deployed massive security measures. In the picture, Chinese police officers change shifts at the Olympic Green on 6 August in Beijing. (Getty Images)

MEDIA
Focus: India

News Corp’s mega plans highlight the potential of the Indian market

BACK IN INDIA: Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corporation| (Pic by Subhabrata Das)

Murdoch, accompanied by Robert Thomson, managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, also announced the launch of the Dow Jones India Titans 30, an index based on 30 blue-chip stocks that will track the stockmarket. Dow Jones expects to license its use as an instrument used by international investors for deploying funds in India.

Gurbir Singh

ENVIRONMENT
Save Amazon Fund

(Bloomberg)

OBITUARY
The ‘De-Stalinist’

(AP)

But Alexey Kosygin, Khruschev’s successor, curtailed Solzhenitsyn’s freedom, even deporting him for his 1973 masterpiece, Gulag Archipalego. Through Gulag, Solzhenitsyn portrayed Lenin and Stalin as unable to govern without the threat of exile or death. As one commentator said, “Western communists who based their economic and political ideology on Lenin were left with a burden of proof against them.”

Solzhenitsyn died on 3 August at the age of 89. He had outlived the system he battled against all his life.

Pierre Mario Fitter

PHARMACEUTICALS
Bending Over Backwards

Drug makers are feeling the heat as the US FDA increases scrutiny

IN THE EYE OF A STORM: Actavis has recalled 65 prescription drugs (Bloomberg)

Last week, after FDA inspected Actavis Totowa’s Little Fall plant in New Jersey, the company, a subsidiary of Iceland’s generic drug giant Actavis, has recalled 65 prescription drugs from the US market.

While the company insisted that it was voluntarily recalling the products as a precautionary measure, the FDA said the inspection revealed operations that did not meet its standards for good manufacturing practices.

Last April, Actavis Totowa had recalled Digitek, a drug to treat heart failure, because some tablets contained twice the active ingredient normally found in the medicine.

The defect could cause serious reactions in patients, said US FDA reports. According to the agency, there have already been several reports of illnesses and injuries in patients taking the drug. Actavis said it had 11 such reports. But because not all adverse reactions are reported to the FDA or manufacturers, the true number could be much higher.

Noemie Bisserbe

(Businessworld Issue 12-18 Aug 2008)