Tata Group

Tata Group maintains a strong U.S. presence  and a Tata North America website.

--

Tata's Subsidary, Tata Steel, has engaged in joint ventrue projects with Iranian Mines and Mining Industries.

--

“India's Tata Group has announced readiness to invest in Iran's mine and energy sectors, the Mehr News Agency reported on March 15. Madhu Kannan, Tata's Head of Business Development, and Janaki Chaudhry, the group's head of strategy and business development, met with Mehdi Karbasian, the head of the Board of Directors of Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation, known as IMIDRO, in Tehran. Kannan said Tata is looking for an Iranian trade partner to carry out projects jointly in the long term. Karbasian, for his part, said that Tata can launch joint ventures for establishing steel plants and carrying out mining exploration projects. Tata Group is an Indian multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Mumbai. It encompasses seven business sectors: communications and information technology, engineering, materials, services, energy, consumer products and chemicals. Tata Group was founded in 1868. It has operations in more than 80 countries across six continents.” (Trend, “India’s Tata announces readiness to invest in Iran’s mine, energy sectors,” 3/15/14)

--

According to its Annual Report filed with the SEC for fiscal year 2013: "TCC had a contractual relationship with the Telecommunication Infrastructure Company of Iran (“TIC”). TCL had a contractual relationship with TIC as well. Both TCL and TCC terminated their contractual relationships with TIC via letters dated January 5, 2013 and January 17, 2013 respectively. Both contract terminations were effective on or before February 5, 2013. As such, the Company believes it has satisfied the requirements for the safe harbor under Section 218 of the ITR Act. Prior to the termination of the contractual relationships, both TCC and TCL had been involved in long-term relationships with TIC, and its former parent company the Telecommunications Company of Iran (“TCI”). The history of these relationships dates back decades, as the companies or their predecessors have been primary telephone operators in the international long distance market in their respective countries. On November 20, 2007, the Company was advised, pursuant to a general notification issued by TCI, of its pending reorganization and privatization by the Iranian government and that “since the ownership of Iranian International Switching Center has been transferred to the state-run TIC, all telecommunication activities such as Total Accounting Rate (TAR), Hubbing Services, Signaling Services will be performed by TIC.

Prior to this privatization, TIC was a wholly owned subsidiary of TCI. As of the privatization in 2008, TIC has operated and continues to operate as part of the Iranian Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies.

The contract between TCC and TIC (“the TCC/TIC contract”) involved the provision of fixed and mobile voice services, including IDDD (International Direct Distance Dialing), HCD (Home Country Direct), ITFS (International Toll Free Service), Operator and ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) traffic. The contract, a Total Accounting Rate (“TAR”) Agreement, sets out differential rates based on the volume of the bilateral voice termination traffic, i.e., from TCC to TIC and from TIC to TCC, and it covered all countries, except for India. The contract between TCL and TIC (“the TCL/TIC contract”) only pertained to the exchange of international voice traffic between India and Iran.

On November 11, 2011, the Government of Canada issued new sanctions against Iran under its Special Economic Measures Act (the “Canadian Iran Regulations”). Of relevance to the TCC/TIC relationship, the new sanctions contain explicit prohibitions on the provision of financial services: (i) to any person in Iran; (ii) from any person in Iran; (iii) for the benefit of any person in Iran; or (iv) on the direction or order of any person in Iran2 . The Canadian Iran Regulations contain grandfathering provisions that exempt from this prohibition those financial services required to be provided further to contracts “entered into before November 22, 2011”3 . The TAR Agreement at issue with TIC was last amended on August 30, 2011, prior to the grandfathering date of November 22, 2011.

On September 17, 2012, TCC sought permission from the Canadian regulator, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, to be allowed the opportunity to obtain payment from TIC for telecommunications services rendered up to the end of 2012 . TCC stated that while it believed that the contract with TIC, since it was entered into prior to November 21, 2011, was exempt from the restriction on conducting financial services with entities in Iran, it was making this filing out of an “abundance of caution.”"

--

“Tata Steel has planned an equity infusion of around $675 million for its joint venture (JV) project with Iranian Mines and Mining Industries and a 100% subsidiary in Iran by 2009, together with an additional $300 million investment by 2011. The project cost for the first and second JVs would be $1.2 billion and $300 million respectively. Both the projects will have a debt-equity ratio in equal proportion and Tata Steel's equity commitment for these two projects would be around $375 million. The first joint venture would include setting up a project for manufacturing billets and slabs with 49% stake each with its Iranian counterpart with the remaining 2% held by a pension fund of the Iranian government. It would manufacture billets and slabs with a capacity of 1.5 million tonne per annum. The second JV too would have a similar shareholding pattern in its mining of unexplored iron ore mines at the Gol-e-Gohar mines in Kerman province of Iran. Further, Tata Steel will also set up a wholly-owned subsidiary for manufacturing 3 million tonne billets in two phases at a cost of $1.2 billion. The equity infusion in this project would be another $600 million split equally between two phases. Sharing details about its mega foray in Iran, Tata Steel managing director B Muthuraman said, ‘the idea is to manufacture billets at the Iran project at low cost and feed it as raw material to the NatSteel facility in Singapore.’” (Press Release, "Tata Steel equity for Iran foray at $675 million," 6/14/05)