I am a crisis manager—the guy corporates call when things go wrong. And they go wrong all the time. Somewhere in India, on most working days, a commercial dispute is being converted into a criminal proceeding. A breach of contract becomes a “criminal breach of trust”. A delayed payment becomes “cheating”. A management disagreement becomes “criminal conspiracy”.
Here’s a typical incident. A German JV in India, with an Indian business family as a minority partner, had not been working smoothly for some time. In a partnership meeting, a senior German executive lost patience and threatened his Indian partners. The Indian family filed a police complaint alleging that fraudulent transactions had been put through the company’s books. On paper, the head of accounts controlled the books. So it was his name on the FIR.
