Netflix vs India’s Bad Boy Billionaires – US streaming giant reveals the truth behind Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Subrata Roy’s fall from grace
Nirav Modi once made jewellery for Kate Winslet to wear to the Oscars; now he, beer mogul Vijay Mallya and Subrata Roy have lost a legal battle to prevent their stories being exposed in an explosive new Netflix series – while a 4th episode about software tycoon B. Ramalinga Raju hangs in the balance
Netflix has won the right to stream a series featuring Indian tycoons who ran into trouble with the law – a victory that may boost its efforts to offer more local content in a crucial emerging market.
An Indian court allowed the American streaming giant to release a bulk of the episodes in its Bad Boy Billionaires: India series, which documents the travails of beer tycoon Vijay Mallya, diamantaire Nirav Modi and Subrata Roy, founder-owner of the Sahara India Pariwar group. However, an episode on a software tycoon is still facing challenges in another local court.
The win, after weeks of legal wrangling in India’s courts, bolsters Netflix, which is ploughing hundreds of millions of dollars into India to offer more local content. The company is aiming for a larger slice of the biggest open market in Asia, which also boasts more than 500 million smartphones users.
The series “explores the greed, fraud and corruption that built up – and ultimately brought down – India’s most infamous tycoons,” Netflix says on its website. The fourth episode of the series, about B. Ramalinga Raju, remains on hold as Netflix contests a legal challenge against its airing. Raju confessed to inflating the assets of his software firm, Satyam Computer Services Ltd., by about US$1 billion in 2009.
Netflix India declined to comment on the ongoing legal challenge and the recent legal win.
‘One-sided’
Meanwhile, Indian conglomerate Sahara India Pariwar said in a statement that the episode on its founder and owner Roy was “ill-motivated” and “contains various incorrect and misleading facts which depict only one-sided allegations.” The company, which got a stay order from court on the docuseries last month, has filed criminal cases against Netflix as well as its producers, directors and reporters, according to the statement.
