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NY court dismisses NDTV law firm’s defamation suit against WPP’s Martin Sorrell
MUMBAI: Indian newscaster New Delhi Television (NDTV)‘s law firm Sabharwal & Finkel (S&F – its legal representative in the Nielsen-TAM India case in New York) suffered a setback recently.
A New York court dismissed a defamation suit the firm had filed against Sir Martin Sorrell in August 2012, claiming that he had made libelous and slanderous statement against it in an interview with Indian financial publication livemint.com.
In that interview, Sorrell had said that the law firm was trying to extort money as a settlement from WPP on behalf of its client NDTV, which had named WPP and Nielsen in a suit relating to TV ratings irregularities by their joint venture in India TAM Media.
Secondly, S&F had stated, Sorrel had incorrectly mentioned that it was based in Florida, suggesting that the firm was violating laws by practicing there.
Thirdly, he had also said that S&F specialises in the restaurant business, whereas its specialty is “complex, commercial litigation, arbitration and banking law.”
S&F had then alleged that Sorrell comments had gone viral on the internet, and, in the process, caused tremendous damage to the firm‘s reputation as it “had been charged with crimes of extortion and or practising law in Florida without a license.”
Hence, it and its principals Rohit Sabharwal and Adam Finkel had no recourse to but to file the defamation suit.
But New York State supreme court judge Cynthia Kern dismissed their charges recently saying that no cause for libel or defamation can be found in the statements that Sorrell had made earlier. She highlighted that “no reasonable reader” would decide that S&F was unethical and incompetent after reading his comments; that they would understand that his statements were “an opinion about the merits of the lawsuit.”
Meanwhile as reported last week, NDTV and S&F have filed a fresh appeal last week in the TV ratings irregularities case against Nielsen in a New York, excluding WPP from the suit.
(See story: NDTV files fresh appeal against Nielsen in New York supreme court )
MUMBAI: In India’s fast-moving payments race, Visa has just swiped in a new leader. The company has named Suresh Sethi as its India country head, marking a key leadership shift as it sharpens its focus on digital payments growth in the market. Sethi steps into the role following his recent exit from Protean eGov Technologies, where he served as chief executive officer. He succeeds Sandeep Ghosh, who has moved on after more than four years at Visa to pursue an external opportunity.
The appointment comes at a time when Visa is doubling down on its expansion strategy across India and the wider region, deepening partnerships and accelerating adoption in an increasingly competitive digital payments ecosystem.
Sethi brings with him a broad, cross-market perspective shaped by decades of experience across corporate banking, retail financial services, mobile money and large-scale government technology initiatives. He began his career at Citigroup, where he spent 14 years working across India, Africa, South America and the United States, focusing on transaction banking services within the corporate bank.
His appointment signals a blend of institutional experience and market familiarity qualities that could prove critical as Visa navigates a landscape where fintech innovation, regulatory evolution and consumer adoption are all accelerating at once.
As digital payments in India continue to scale rapidly, the leadership change underscores a simple reality, in a market where every tap, scan and swipe counts, who leads the charge can matter just as much as the technology itself.
