HBS Professor Fined For Role in Satyam Scandal: MBA News

By Tim Dhoul Updated Dec 09, 2014

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Introduction
Harvard Business School’s Palepu known for MBA textbook on accounting

Satyam scandal leads to fine for HBS professor

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A professor at Harvard Business School (HBS), Krishna Palepu, has been found guilty and fined approximately US$430,000 in relation to financial irregularities for his role as an independent director of Satyam Computers.

The ruling - as part of the Satyam scandal that is held to be India’s largest corporate accounting scandal - was made by a court in Hyderabad yesterday, December 8.

The court also imposed fines on all other accused Satyam directors and sentenced Satyam’s founder, B Ramalinga Raju, to six months imprisonment.

It was Raju who had confessed to falsifying Satyam’s accounts to the tune of US$1.47 billion back in 2009 and, in the resultant repercussions, the Indian arm of PwC was forced to pay a US$6 million settlement relating to charges from the US’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its role as the company’s auditor when the Satyam scandal broke. The company has since merged with Tech Mahindra.

The fine levied against HBS’s Palepu is deemed as reimbursement for excess remuneration received from the company. The amount of just under half a million dollars is far higher than the fines imposed on the other directors involved in the Satyam scandal, something that has been suggested signals the higher fees commanded by Palepu, an MBA alumnus of IIM Calcutta and a PhD graduate of MIT Sloan.

Harvard Business School’s Palepu known for MBA textbook on accounting

Palepu has been on the faculty at Harvard Business School since 1983 and, aside from his role as a professor of business administration, Palepu also serves as senior advisor to Harvard University’s president for global strategy.

Strategy – with regards to emerging markets such as India and China – has been the focus of Palepu’s recent research at HBS, and he co-authored Winning in Emerging Markets in 2010 with Tarun Khanna, another HBS faculty member.

However, his best known publication may come from his prior work in the field of corporate finance and disclosure, which may raise a few eyebrows considering the situation he has found himself in through association with the Satyam scandal.

Business Analysis and Valuation: Text and Cases was co-authored by the HBS professor in 1996. According to the school it is widely used on MBA programs across the world, having been translated into Chinese, Japanese and Spanish and receiving two awards from accounting bodies.

Written by

Tim Dhoul

Tim is a writer with a background in consumer journalism and charity communications. He trained as a journalist in the UK and holds degrees in history (BA) and Latin American studies (MA).