Corporate governance award may be withdrawn

Hyderabad: Satyam Computer Services Ltd, whose chairman Ramalinga Raju resigned after saying he falsified accounts and assets, will probably have its award for corporate governance withdrawn, the group that granted the title said.

"We're planning to withdraw the branding, which the winner can use for three years, and the award," Manoj Raut, a New Delhi-based spokesman for the Golden Peacock Awards Secretariat, said by phone yesterday.

"The council will be meeting shortly to check the legal perspectives and how to go about it," Raut said yesterday.

Satyam in September won the Golden Peacock Global Award for Excellence in Corporate Governance from the London-based World Council for Corporate Governance.

Satyam was "top of the list" during the award selection process, said Raut, who is also a director at India's Institute of Directors, a non-profit organisation aimed at improving domestic companies' competitiveness.

"They had such a qualified, highly independent board structure, he said. "All of a sudden, the company has announced that they've misled the whole industry, investors, businesses, employees."