DataWind sued by Akash assembler Quad Electronics
17 Apr 2012
The fight over the world's cheapest tablet is hotting up even as retail customers await deliveries. The Hyderabad-based assembler of Akash tablet, Quad Electronics, has sued DataWind and alleged that the British-Indian firm did not come forward to procure its contracted inventory or pay for the tablets.
DataWind countered saying it would not procure any more tablets from Quad and would settle the issue legally.
Quad has served a legal notice to DataWind for non-payment of $1.12 million against dues outstanding and inventory procured for DataWind.
Quoting R Soin, founder-CEO of Quad Electronics The Economic Times reported that DataWind contracted Quad for 50,000 tablets and had failed to pick up its inventory breaching the contract.
According to Quad, DataWind procured only 10,000 pieces adding the company had manufactured 10,000 more tablets which were not sold yet. In response to Quad, DataWind's CEO Suneet Tuli said only 10,000 units were picked up because that was all Quad manufactured.
He charged that non-payment of dues could be confirmed with the bankers, Bank of Bahrain & Kuwait and Barclays Plc, involved in the letter of credit.