Devas Multimedia isn’t a quoted company so what’s happening to it has no direct impact on anything we might be doing as investors. However, what the government of India is doing to Devas is a good indication of how they’re going to try to play the conflicts between what the government of India desires to do and what the courts say it is legal for that government to do. The truth being that the government seems to want to do a lot which isn’t wholly and entirely legal – as the courts are saying.
This has effects upon Cairn Energy, a quoted company we have looked at before. But it also should be colouring our attitude toward doing business in India. Either through investment in an Indian company, or investment into India by a company we’re invested in. The truth of the matter being that we need to have serious concerns about the rule of law there. An absence of that rule of law being exactly the thing which should make us fearful for our money – to the point that we should probably not send it there.