Wednesday, April 24, 2013

In knots over family & legal wrangles

The Hiranandani family has been in the news recently more for the wrong reasons than right. A running family feud and other legal travails could well put the skids on the family’s many business ventures, if not settled imminently and amicably.

Family feuds breaking out in well-known business houses are not uncommon. But the ongoing legal run-ins of the Hiranandanis and Mafatlals certainly take the cake, the plate and the trimmings. Often, at the core of the dispute is that hoary old chestnut, property, over which ties of blood and kinship have been known to fray and fall apart. The dispute between Mafatlal scion Atulya Mafatlal and his socialite wife Sheetal before the Bombay High Court and the legal battle between Darshan Hiranandani and his sister Priya Hiranandani-Vandrevala present unedifying examples of the public spectacles that family feuds in business houses commonly degenerate to. Another family drama to have spilled into the public domain in recent times was the rift between the Ambani brothers. The two siblings, with probably higher business stakes up for grabs in the course of their bitter feud than any other warring members of the business tribe in India, did eventually bury the hatchet, which gives rise to the hope that even the Hiranandanis and Mafatlals would prefer to settle for an amicable resolution of their problems rather than slug it out in the courts.

Of course, the Mafatlal case has become juicy fodder for the tabloids. Despite the efforts of the HC-appointed mediator to bring the estranged couple to agree on the contentious issues, media reports suggest that any conciliation in the matter looks improbable and not within easy sight. On the other hand, the tussle between construction magnate Niranjan Hiranandani’s two children – son Darshan and daughter Priya, a chartered accountant based out of London – came out into the open in 2009 after Priya accused her father and brother of violating a non-compete agreement signed among them in 2006. The agreement required that all business transactions to develop and acquire property be undertaken exclusively with each other for the first seven years. The profits were to be shared equally between Priya and the Hiranandanis. Priya claims that her father and brother entered into projects without her knowledge, either independently or with others in the real estate sector, despite signing the agreement to do business exclusively with her.

Does he feel bitter or disappointed at his daughter’s demeanour? “Younger people have high ambitions but little tolerance,” says Hiranandani, speaking to Business & Economy. “They want everything fast... Earlier, senior members of the family controlled affairs; now everyone wants to take their own call.” When asked about the rumours that the realty group started in 1978 by him and his brother Surendra, and known today for its realty projects in and around Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Dubai, could be headed for a split, he vociferously discounts any such possibility, “It’s natural to have differences between family members. But there is no such possibility of any split happening in the group’s realty business.”


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
 
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles
 
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,