Hyderabad-based software consulting, outsourcing and business solutions company, Prithvi Information Solutions Limited, has filed a civil suit against Deutsche Bank in a Bangalore court and obtained an interim injunction, the company said in a filing to the BSE on Wednesday.
The investigating authority has filed a final report with the additional chief metropolitan magistrate, Bangalore. “Our perusal for all the matters and copies of documents pertaining to the subject matter of Halsoor police seemed to be civil in nature. The higher officials of the department have also opined the same thing,” according to the findings of the investigating authority.
It may be recalled that Deutsche Bank had lodged a complaint with the Bangalore police against Prithvi Info accusing the IT company of committing “an illegal act of making false representations for availing the credit facilities and forex/hedging facilities, besides producing fabricated documents to fraudulently procure funds from the bank.” The bank has also charged Prithvi with having committed to a Rs 31.95-crore fraud.
Deutsche Bank, in its complaint, stated that Prithvi had availed itself of bill discounting and forex hedging facility by claiming that it had several big foreign companies as its clients. The bank alleged that Prithvi had provided a series of ‘false’ letters of credit from several US-based companies including T-Mobile USA, Johns Hopkins Hospital USA and Starpoint Solutions LLC.
“The investigating agency (Bangalore police) had itself said that the subject matter seemed to be civil in nature and had put the case in the magistrate court. We have received an interim injection against Deutsche Bank not to pass any defamatory statements against Prithvi,” Prithvi Info managing director Satish Kumar told Business Standard.
Kumar said the company had reported Rs 67 crore of forex losses and the Bank had used some clause adjustments. “Of the Rs 67 crore, we had paid Rs 57 crore and Deutsche Bank used a factorial service to adjust that, which it now claims to be bill discounting, which is not the case.”
While denying the allegations on the its client list, Kumar said all the three companies – Starpoint Solutions, Johns Hopkins and T-Mobile – to which Deutsche Bank wrote letters, continued to be its clients. “However, they are worried about the manner their names came in negative light. We are in the process of allaying our clients’ fears,” he said.