India's top court allows forensic audit in Fortis-IHH Healthcare unit case

Sept 28 (Reuters) - Malaysia's IHH Healthcare IHHH.KL said on Monday that India's top court has disposed of Fortis Healthcare's FOHE.NS petition challenging a court-ordered forensic audit concerning a decade-long dispute, allowing the audit to proceed.

• Fortis Healthcare had filed a petition challenging a late August court order, which directed the appointment of a forensic auditor into alleged asset dissipation by former promoters, or controlling shareholders, of Fortis.

• Japan's Daiichi Sankyo 4568.T had claimed that former Fortis promoters, Malvinder Mohan Singh and Shivinder Mohan Singh, had moved or disposed of assets that could have been used to satisfy an arbitration award the Japanese drugmaker won in 2016.

• The court-ordered audit would investigate the alleged disposal of ‌the former promoters' Fortis shareholding, subsequent change in the control of the Indian hospital operator, and the role of the relevant stakeholders.

• IHH reiterated on Monday that its unit, Northern TK Venture Pte (NTK), acquired a 31% stake in Fortis in 2018 via a "transparent, widely public and fully regulated competitive bidding process".

• "No secondary shares were acquired from the former promoters and judgement debtors, Mr Malvinder Mohan Singh and Mr Shivinder Mohan Singh, and no payments were made to them," IHH's statement said.

• The firm said it had suffered losses from delays in obtaining approvals to buy the stake, even though it was not a party to the dispute involving Daiichi Sankyo and its judgment debtors.

• IHH will fully cooperate with the forensic audit, the company added.

• IHH is one of the world's largest private healthcare groups operating 190 healthcare facilities across 10 countries, including Malaysia, Singapore, Türkiye and India.

• Fortis runs 36 healthcare facilities with over 6,000 beds across India.