Nina Pillai threatens to take fizz out of Coke

Speaking to The Indian Express, Nina Pillai said this was just the first salvo she was firing against Coca Cola. “I took time to make my move because I was completing my documentation against them.” Her lawyer, Satish L. Maneshinde, said he had seen “sufficient” evidence with Nina Pillai to prove malafide of the Coca Cola company.

Nina Pillai’s case against Coca Cola goes back to the 1991 joint venture partnership between their company, JMRPCO, and Coca Cola South Holding, begun in order to bring Coca Cola back into India through the NRI route. Nina Pillai was a Director of the company. She now alleges that one midnight in 1993, she and her husband were coerced into signing an exit termination agreement, virtually at the point of a gun as she says.

Rajan Pillai died in 1995, and once she recovered from the shock, she says, she realised the illegality of the exit document she and her husband had been made to sign “forcibly” and began collecting evidence.

Her complaint says, “The company terminated the agreement in an arbitrary manner under threat, coercion, duress and deceit in the year 1993 which has come to light now…Mr Isdell (then President of Coca Cola) forced Mr and Mrs Pillai to sign the exit document by fax at 1 am, Singapore time, with no lawyers present, an act which in itself is a breach of trust and faith.”

Giving a history of how the multinational soft drink major was thrown out of India in 1980 by the Janata government and then allowed to return due to the efforts of Rajan Pillai, the complaint says even the land allotted to the company at Mulshi, Maharashtra, was due to JMRPCO. “The permission under which you (Coca Cola) are carrying on manufacture of coke concentrate is illegal as no procedure established by law has been followed. My client (Nina Pillai) will take appropriate action through the Government of India and if necessary take steps through the court of law to stop the illegal manufacture of Coke and other brands in India with immediate effect.”

Nina Pillai has demanded an unqualified apology from Coca Cola for what she describes as unfair business practices and a compensation of Rs 100 crore for the “serious prejudice”. The complainant, according to the notice, is backed by “substantial” documents and witnesses, including the employees of the company, who will reveal the truth at an appropriate time.