Hexaware Technologies today reported that its board of directors has appointed a special committee to conduct an internal investigation and make recommendations for changes to its foreign exchange management practices.This action is due to "certain actively concealed and potentially fraudulent foreign exchange option transactions conducted by one Hexaware official", according to a press statement.The Hexaware official, who exercised unauthorised fiduciary powers, has been suspended, pending investigation. Hexaware plans to provision between $20-25 million to cover any potential exposure as a result of these transactions. The series of forex transactions in question were initiated over the last few months. These transactions were unauthorised and outside the company's normal hedging programme.The information regarding these transactions was intentionally withheld from the senior management and the board of directors and was not included in internal reports.The first transaction came to light on November 22, 2007. Preliminary investigations conducted over Friday, Saturday and Sunday led to uncovering of more such transactions. "The need for provisioning is because or direct actions of one individual which were actively concealed," said Rusi Brij, Vice Chairman and CEO."As immediate steps, an embargo has been placed on all option deals; future forex deals will necessarily have to be transacted jointly by two signatories out of the designated four from amongst the top management; the company's authorised dealers are being informed about this procedure and the internal auditors (KPMG) are being asked to conduct a thorough audit of the function. The company will continue to maintain the normal hedging strategy to protect against the rupee appreciation," said Shailesh Haribhakti, Chairman of the Audit Committee. The company will take all measures and actions as advised by the Special Committee of the board of directors, Statutory Auditors (Deloitte) and Legal Advisers, to mitigate the impact or the transactions and prevent recurrence of similar situations in the future. "The company's business remains robust and its future growth trajectory unaffected. Our order book, as of September 30, 2007, stands at over $300 million. We will continue to build on that," added Rusi Brij.
