Porsche’s former importer in India, Precision Motors India Pvt. Ltd., was recently in the spotlight having filed criminal proceedings against Matthias Müller, President and Chief Executive Officer, Porsche AG and eight (or six, according to WSJ) other members of the board (Bernhard Maier, Lutz Meschke, Thomas Edig, Wolfgang Hatz, Wolfgang Leimgruber and Deesch Papke, George Wills and Angela Kreitz). Mr. Ashish Chordia who heads the Shreyan’s Group, whose sister concern is Precision Cars filed a petition in June accusing the Porsche officials of cheating, intimidation and criminal conspiracy against his firm. He also said that his company was not informed of the decision to change importers. The warrants were issued by a magistrate in Jaipur.
Porsche has now given an official statement regarding the issue. Porsche says the bailable warrants are ‘effectively a form of summons which provides the named individuals with the chance to answer the allegations made in front of the court’. Following the civil litigation procedure initiated by Mr. Chordia after the termination of the contract in 2011, the Trial Court and the High Court of Rajasthan at Jaipur had delivered judgement in favour of Porsche India and a subsequent appeal to the Supreme Court was dismissed.
Porsche says this is a last resort option by Precision Cars to open an ‘inherently frivolous’ lawsuit.
The allegations in the criminal proceeding in which the Court in Jaipur/India has issued the bailable warrants are in the view of Porsche baseless and without any material substance. This case is based on a purely civil dispute brought to court by the former importer of Porsche AG following the ordinary termination of its importer contract by Porsche in 2011.
Both the learned Trial Court and the Honourable High Court of Rajasthan at Jaipur have upheld Porsche’s termination of the importer agreement and a subsequent appeal by the former importer to the Honourable Supreme Court of India was also dismissed. With one exception the former importer has exhausted all rights of appeal and the civil litigation is now at an end.
The filing of criminal proceeding is an afterthought and just an attempt by the former importer to open a new – in the view of Porsche’s local lawyers inherently frivolous – proceeding against Porsche. According to Porsche’s local lawyers said bailable warrants are effectively a form of summons which provides the named individuals with the chance to answer the allegations made in front of the court.
Porsche has the highest regards for the Indian judiciary and is going to – represented by its local lawyers and is taking steps to have the warrants and criminal proceedings quashed within the applicable periods. Porsche’s lawyers are confident to be able to demonstrate that the complaint is completely frivolous.