Vodafone's Chief Executive Officer, Mr Vittorio Colao, described as “ridiculous” any association made between the company and black money.
“There is nothing black about Vodafone,” Mr Colao said on Tuesday, as the company announced its full year results for the year ending March.
“We bought a company in India, we do business in India, we have made no capital gains in India and we won a Supreme Court case in India.”
The white paper tabled in the Lok Sabha on Monday stated that the Vodafone case provided “an instance of the misuse of corporate structure for avoiding the payment of taxes.”
dispute
Mr Colao defended the company's approach, including the notice of dispute filed under the India-Netherlands Bilateral Investment Treaty. “We are a conciliatory company that wants to work with customers, networks, and pricing and not on lawyers, regulations and litigation but we need to defend our shareholders' rights... A reasonably sensible conciliation is possible of course we would consider that but a reasonable sensible conciliation should take into consideration that we did not make any capital gains.”
He insisted that the company was a “long term” player in the market, and had the “patience of an MNC that will be in India many years from now.”
However, the firm made it clear that the dispute would have an impact on potential IPO plans. “I think clearly with the current situation and regulatory environment it wouldn't be appropriate for us to be talking about an IPO,” Mr Nick Read, CEO of Asia, the Middle East and Asia Pacific, said.
“We want to IPO that business, we want to be a major investor in India, but we have to have the right regulatory environment.”
It came as Vodafone reported a 1.2 per cent rise in Group revenues, a €4 billion impairment charge related to its Southern European businesses, and estimated that 2013 revenue growth would be below its medium term target of 1 to 4 per cent. India proved one of its best performers, with services revenues up 19.5 per cent. In the fourth quarter India became Vodafone's fifth largest contributor to group revenues.
Confident of assets
Vodafone had never had a problem with the Indian market, Mr Colao insisted. “We are confident that the quality of our assets is very good. I think the Indian policy environment has to improve for the good of India itself.”