ITV

Tag: Robert Messemer

  • WPP, Group firms file for dismissal of NDTV lawsuit against them

    WPP, Group firms file for dismissal of NDTV lawsuit against them

    MUMBAI: Global communications conglomerate WPP Plc and its group companies have filed an application for dismissal of New Delhi Television Ltd‘s (NDTV) lawsuit against them in the New York Supreme Court over corruption in television ratings system in India.

    Nielsen group companies and TAM Media Research are not party to the dismissal application.

    Law firm Davis & Gilbert LLP has filed the dismissal application on behalf of WPP, Kantar Market Research Services Pvt Ltd, IMRB International, Cavendish Square Holding BV and J Walter Thompson.

    NDTV filed its lawsuit on 26 July accusing 31 entities, including TAM, Nielsen, Kantar and their officials, of knowingly allowing continuation of manipulation of television viewership data in favour of broadcasters willing to pay bribes to its officials or representatives.

    WPP owns half of TAM in India through its subsidiaries – Kantar and Cavendish, and the other half of TAM is owned by The Nielsen Company.

    The title of the application filed by WPP group reads “Memorandum of Law In Support Of Moving Defendants’ Motion To Dismiss The Complaint In Its Entirety As Against Them”. WPP and its group companies are the moving defendants, which means defendants who have moved the application.

    WPP has cited the following grounds for dismissal of the NDTV lawsuit:

    • The complaint must be dismissed for insufficient service on the moving defendants. It also said that the New York court lacks personal jurisdiction over Kantar India as it does not maintain an office in New York and neither does Kantar India do business in New York.
    • The dismissal petition says that the complaint must be dismissed on grounds of forum non coveniens. WPP argued that neither New Delhi TV nor the moving defendants are residents of New York and the situs of the transaction points to India as the only appropriate forum for this dispute. It stressed in its petition that India is an available, appropriate forum for this Indian dispute and added that action will impose a substantial burden on this New York court and defending this action in New York will impose a severe burden on moving defendants.
    • The media agency network also pointed out in the dismissal petition that NDTV has failed to allege facts sufficient to pierce the corporate veil. The motion explains, “The concept of piercing the corporate veil is a limitation on the accepted principles that a corporation exists independently of its owners, as a separate legal entity, that the owners are normally not liable for the debts of the corporation, and that it is perfectly legal to incorporate for the express purpose of limiting the liability of the corporate owners.” It further explains that in order to depart from these accepted principles and pierce the corporate veil to hold the owners of a corporation liable for the corporation‘s conduct, a Plaintiff must allege facts establishing “(1) the owners exercised complete domination of the corporation in respect to the transaction attacked; and (2) that such domination was used to commit a fraud or wrong against the plaintiff which resulted in plaintiffs injury.”

    WPP has also claimed in the dismissal petition that each and every cause of action against Kantar India, WPP, Cavendish, JWT AND IMRB is not adequately pleaded and, therefore, must be dismissed.

    The petition also points out that in the lawsuit filed by NDTV, many of the companies have been improperly named. “Kantar Market Research Services Pvt. Ltd. (improperly sued as Kantar Media Research Pvt. Ltd.) (“Kantar India”), IMRB International, a division of Hindustan Thompson Associates Private Limited (improperly sued as IMRB International) (“IMRB”), Cavendish Square Holding BV (“Cavendish”), J. Walter Thompson (although no such entity exists and no proper J. Walter Thompson entity has any connection to the facts alleged in the Complaint) (“JWT”) and WPP plc (“WPP”) (which also has no connection to the facts alleged in the Complaint) (collectively),” said the petition.

    Before the filing of the dismissal application, WPP on 22 August started a war of words with NDTV through media statements. In the first statement WPP said, “In any event, there is no merit, whatsoever, in any of the claims made in the hypothetical Law Suit relating to the WPP Parties, nor do the courts of New York have any jurisdiction to hear any such claims.”

    TAM India and Nielsen have so far not reacted to the filing of the lawsuit by NDTV.

    In its lawsuit, NDTV said after countless efforts to resolve with TAM the issue of corruptionin ratings system, for many years prior to 2012, to no avail, in January 2012, NDTV complained directly to David Calhoun, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Nielsen, about the serious defects in the Nielsen Process, as applied to the Indian market.

    Following NDTV’s complaint in January 2012 to Calhoun, senior officials from Nielsen and Kantar attended several meetings with NDTV in January, February and April of 2012 and have made decisions as well as provided (which NDTV says have now known to be false) assurances to NDTV.

    NDTV’s lawsuit said senior Kantar officials such as Eric Salama, CEO worldwide, and senior Nielsen officers such as Paul Donato, Global Head of Research and Measurement and Science, Robert Messemer, Global Head of Security and Piyush Mathur, President, India Region, have been directly and actively engaged in initiating and leading the investigations within TAM in India as well as from the US where Nielsen and Kantar have ordered forensic examinations of IT Systems of TAM officers.

    Nielsen and Kantar personnel dominated these meetings, rendering all key decisions affecting TAM’s future course of conduct, and making it abundantly clear to NDTV that Nielsen and Kantar were in total control over TAM’s operations, the lawsuit pointed out.

    It further stated that Nielsen entities such as the “The Nielsen Company” based in the United States and senior officers at Nielsen including the Global Head of Nielsen Research Services Paul Donato and Chief Security officer Robert Messemer have, on behalf of Nielsen, witnessed and in Messemer’s case, additionally provided contractual assurances to whistle blowers in India who provided evidence of manipulation and corruption within TAM in India.

  • TV channels paid, TAM officials accepted bribes: NDTV’s whistleblower

    Mumbai: Some television channels pay bribes to have their viewership ratings falsely boosted. Those who help the television channels in subverting the ratings system are the ones who are supposed to be the flag bearers of the television ratings agency’s noble duties.

    These are the allegations made by broadcaster New Delhi Television Ltd (NDTV) in its lawsuit in New York against Nielsen, Kantar, their Indian joint venture TAM and their senior officials.

    The basis of the allegations is revelations by a consultant, who provided on ground services to TAM. NDTV claims the revelations were made at a meeting of NDTV, Nielsen and Kantar officials on 20 January 2012. Robert Messemer, chief security officer at The Nielsen Company, was also present at the meeting.

    NDTV has referred to the unidentified consultant as the whistleblower. A whistleblower is a person who reports illegal activities going on in an organisation. But the consultant is, in fact, an approver having admitted to accepting bribes himself. The consultant said he accepted bribes from TV channels and in turn paid bribes to TAM officials and to some of the people who have allowed TAM to install peoplemeters at their homes.

    According to the lawsuit, the whistleblower consultant told the officials present that he was even successful in bribing TAM officials to have a peoplemeter installed at his home. The norms disqualify the consultant from having a peoplemeter deployed as the consultant belonged to the television industry.

    NDTV said the 20 January meeting was also attended by Piyush Mathur, president, India region, The Nielsen Company.

    NDTV subsequently said that at a meeting on 11 April 2012, the representatives of Nielsen and Kantar had “unequivocally admitted” that the information provided by whistleblower consultant was highly credible.

    NDTV has supported its claim of television channels paying a bribe through the admissions of an unnamed employee of a broadcaster that indulged in illegal gratification. It said on 24 February 2012, (the employee of) a broadcaster, whom it did not identify, met NDTV officials Rahul Sood and Kirandev Hiremath.

    The broadcaster employee told the NDTV officials that “his channel was involved in corrupt practices to fix ratings.” He even named a cable operator from Hassan in Karnataka, who acted as a consultant for fixing ratings for his channel.

    To support its allegation that TAM officials were prone to manipulation, it has referred to a meeting its representatives — Rahul Sood, Sidharth Barhate and Anand Mohan Jha – had with two field staff members of TAM on 3 April 2012 at Ramada Plaza Hotel at Juhu in Mumbai. NDTV has not named the two employees in its lawsuit.

    NDTV claimed the TAM employees told its officials that they were willing to manipulate TAM ratings in Mumbai. The two employees claimed to have manipulated ratings for other channels in the past and were willing provide the same “services” for “any” channel that was ready to pay the demanded consideration (bribe).

    They were confident that they could triple channel ratings of NDTV in Mumbai over a period of two to three weeks in the required target group. They said by paying a bribe of $250 to $500 per household per month, the TAM households could be made to watch only those channels which they insisted upon.

    NDTV said the Ramada Plaza meeting was viewed by an external surveillance agency, which took photographs of the employees. Those photographs were shown to Bob Messemer in New Delhi on 27 April 2012.

    On 11 and 12 April, NDTV said its representatives were provided information by Nielsen and Kantar officials that there were cases of several field employees who had refused promotions for last few years simply because at their current positions their alternate source of income was higher than what their salary would be on being promoted.

    Nielsen’s security chief had admitted that proper security practices were not being followed by TAM and that theft and leakage of data was rampant. He had also admitted that in India, the entire system was corrupt from top to bottom, NDTV claimed.

    Subsequent to the meetings held in New Delhi in April 2012, Puliyel, a director on the Board of TAM and a Kantar official, wrote an “evasive” email on 19 April to NDTV, with copy to Piyush Mathur of The Nielsen Company, merely mentioning that there had been a board meeting of TAM and they were doing some additional analysis on reporting samples by channels to examine the threshold for reporting and frequency of reporting, etc.

    NDTV said there was no mention in the email whether the TAM board had even considered stopping the release of “what had now been confirmed” as corrupt television viewership data, as was agreed at the meetings held on 11 and 12 April.

    These instances, if proved to be true, would mean TAM did little to weed out corruption despite years of efforts of NDTV. TAM would have also violated the Nielsen Code written in 1931. Impartiality, thoroughness, accuracy, integrity, economy, price, delivery and service are the hallmarks of the code.