Dear Sir,
I would like to introduce myself as one of the members of the consortium that successfully bid for the Cochin IPL team in the recently concluded BCCI-IPL auction. As you might be already aware, the consortium members had signed the Franchise Agreement with IPL earlier today at ITC Gardenia, Bangalore. The Commissioner of IPL, Mr Lalit Modi, himself signed the agreement on behalf of BCCI-IPL.
I write this letter to you, on behalf of the consortium (consortium members have been cc'ed in this email), to request you to immediately look into a serious breach of trust that has occurred earlier today.
I would like to specifically draw your attention to clause 19.1 (Confidentiality clause) in the signed Franchise Agreement that concludes as follows:
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19.1 The parties shall at all times treat this agreement as being private and confidential and its contents shall not be used for any purpose (other than the proper performance of this Agreement) or disclosed either directly or indirectly to any person except:
a) with the prior written agreement of both parties: or
b) as may be required by any statutory, regulatory or governmental or quasi governmental authority, pursuant to the rules of any recognised stock exchange or as otherwise required by law
However, it is unfortunate to note that, Mr Lalit Modi himself, on his Twitter account has disclosed various vital aspects of the contract today evening (Please see attached document). Information disclosed include shareholding pattern of the consortium as well as shareholding patterns of various participating consortium member companies. Please note that, Mr Modi, has not disclosed such information for the other nine teams participating in the league. In addition, we have been seeing various remarks by Mr Modi in the media and on Twitter, questioning the capability and the intentions of this consortium.
We are shocked to see this unethical behaviour coming from the commissioner himself, even before 24 hours has come to pass after signing the agreement. As a consortium, we have abided by the terms and conditions of the bid document and franchise agreement in letter and spirit. Behaviour and actions as conducted by Mr Modi brings complete disrespect to the sport, the IPL league, as well as to the sanctity of the bidding process.
On behalf of the consortium, I sincerely request you to immediately 1) instruct Mr Modi to retract the statements made in the media as well on Twitter, 2) reveal/ disclose similar information for all participating teams on his Twitter account, 3) apologise for the communications given in the media.
We, as a consortium are also contemplating to initiate legal action against Mr Modi for this irresponsible behavior, which brings disrepute to his office.
We look forward to speedy action and justice on this subject.
Thanking you
Sincerely
Vivek Venugopal
Co - owner
Cochin IPL team
