Tata Vs Mistry Gets Nasty As Tata Sons Vows To Prove That Cyrus Is Lying

Dismissed Tata Sons chairman, Cyrus Mistry, took his gloves off in his widely leaked 2,100-word mail to the board targeting Ratan Tata and people close to him with a string of allegations of bad business bets and questionable deals.

On Thursday, Mistry was party to business decisions for over a decade, says Tata Sons in reply to Mistry's allegations that, at 700 words, was one-third as long as Mistry's mail and steered clear of specifics¡ª but made it amply clear that it wouldn't hesitate to bare its knuckles.

BCCL

Even while professing that it was "beneath the dignity of Tata Sons to engage in a public spat", it issued a thinly veiled threat that it was prepared to abandon strategic restraint and strike back at a time and place of its choosing: "The record, as and when made public, will prove things to the contrary."

Pointing out that Mistry had been on the board since 2006 and deputy chairman for a year till he formally replaced Ratan Tata in end-December 2012, it said, "It is unfortunate that it is only on his removal" that "malicious allegations" and "unsubstantiated claims" were being made about "business decisions that the former chairman was party to for over a decade in different capacities".

BCCL

Tata Sons sought to turn the tables on Mistry, who has claimed his dismissal was illegal and invalid, by stating that he "had overwhelmingly lost the confidence of the board...for a combination of several factors."

The directors, it said, had "repeatedly raised queries and concerns on certain business issues, and trustees of the Tata Trusts were increasingly getting concerned with the growing trust deficit with Mr Mistry, but these were not being addressed. The Tata Sons board, in its collective wisdom, took the decision to replace its chairman in the manner undertaken." Mistry's tenure, it added, "was marked by repeated departures from the culture and ethos of the group".

The company rejected Mistry's claim that his predecessor's interference, changes in the holding company's articles of association, and the creation of "alternative power centres" had reduced him to the "position of a lame-duck chairman". He had been "fully empowered" and enjoyed "complete autonomy" to manage the group, it said.

BCCL

It slammed Mistry for leaking "communication marked confidential...in an unseemly and undignified manner".

Then, with a touch of sarcasm, it said Mistry was now levelling "accusations against individuals and company boards ignoring corporate governance norms that were supposedly upheld by the former chairman while in office".

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