Price Waterhouse files suit against former Satyam boss Ramalinga Raju

New Delhi, Jan 10 (PTI) Audit firm Price Waterhouse has filed a suit against B Ramalinga Raju, former chairman of Indian IT company Satyam, and others claiming damages of Rupees 1.0 billion (about USD 19.2 million) for "deliberately" concealing key information that led to the Rs 140.0 billion USD 2.7 bn) accounting fraud. A day after Tech Mahindra-acquired Satyam filed a suit against its former Board of Directors, certain employees and Price Waterhouse seeking damages for perpetrating a fraud three years ago, PW officials revealed that they have already filed a similar suit in a Andhra Pradesh court against the software firm on January 7, 2012. "We have filed for minimum compensation and damages of Rs 100 crore (1.0 bn), arising from the carefully and deliberately concealed fraud specifically designed to mislead the auditors by providing deliberately false information and documents," a source said. The civil suit is against Satyam and its former senior management -- Ramalinga Raju, Rama Raju, G Rama Krishna, Vadlamani Srinivas, Srisailam Chetkuru, D Venkatapathi Raju, the person added. Yesterday in a BSE filing, Mahindra Satyam had said the company filed a suit in city civil court, Hyderabad, seeking damages from PW and former Satyam Board for "inter-alia perpetrating fraud, breach of fiduciary responsibility, obligations and negligence in performance of duties". Satyam was taken over by the Mahindra group in 2009 and rechristened it as Mahindra Satyam, after its founder Ramalinga Raju admitted to an about Rs 140.0 billion accounting scam in 2009. PTI