Sun Pharma will form ethics panel to supervise corporate governance-related matters: Dilip Shanghvi

Sun Pharmaceuticals managing director Dilip Shanghvi has said that the company’s board agreed in principle to form an ethics panel to supervise matters pertaining to corporate governance, said a media report. “In principle, the board has agreed to constitute a corporate governance and ethics committee to oversee corporate governance-related matters. This will be formalised in the ensuing board meeting,” The Economic Times quoted Shanghvi as saying in an interview. [caption id=“attachment_2204748” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] A file photo of Dilip Shanghvi. Reuters[/caption] Shanghvi said that the actions were legal and were in the best interests of the company adding that it was necessary to address investor concerns. He claimed that the board took major steps to strengthen governance standards further, the report said. In January this year, Sun Pharma had announced a slew of measures, including replacement of its domestic formulations distributor Aditya Medisales and change of auditors for its arms, in the wake of a second whistleblower complaint that raised corporate governance issues, said a PTI report. The company also announced the settlement of a transaction amounting to Rs 2,238 crore with Atlas Global Trading — with which it had a supply agreement — that had arisen out a patent litigation settlement over Protonix. Aditya Medisales is reported to have had transactions of over Rs 5,800 crore with a real estate firm, Suraksha Realty that is promoted by Sudhir Valia, who is the brother-in-law of Sun Pharma promoter Dilip Sanghvi. Valia is also an executive director in the pharmaceutical major. In December last year, markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) began to examine the whistleblower complaint against Shanghvi-led Sun Pharmaceutical Industries. In November 2018, a whistleblower had approached SEBI with a document alleging various irregularities by the company, its promoter Shanghvi and others. Shangvi earlier denied receiving any query from the markets regulator regarding the whistleblower complaint. In August 2017, Sun Pharmaceutical, Shanghvi and nine other entities settled an insider trading probe on payment of Rs 18 lakh towards settlement charges. However, reports stated that the regulator was likely to reopen the case as it had powers to reopen cases of a settlement related to insider trading on various grounds. — With PTI inputs