Dow chief, Andrew Liveris, to skip Indo-US CEO forum meet

Washington: Andrew Liveris, chairman and CEO of Dow Chemicals, will not attend the Indo-US CEO Business Forum meet scheduled for Tuesday. The meet will see participation of a high-level Indian delegation, led by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee along with commerce minister Anand Sharma, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and prominent corporate leaders from India.

"He is not attending because of his prior engagement," Dow spokesperson told PTI.

In 1999 Dow Chemical Company bought Union Carbide Corporation, a company responsible for the Bhopal gas tragedy, the world's worst industrial disaster in 1984.

Dow washed its hands of any liability for the tragedy which occurred when toxic methyl isocyanate gas leaked from Union Carbide India Ltd (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh in 3 December 1984, and killed atleast  20,000 people while incapacitating more than 500,000 others.

It is Dow Chemical's case that it bought Union Carbide a decade after this firm had settled its liabilities with the Indian government in 1989 by paying $470 million for the victims.

"We will pursue the case against Dow Chemical (in court) to find out about (its) liability," Jaipal Reddy, the federal urban development minister who is on a newly constituted  Group of Ministers (GoM) panel dealing with the accident, told reporters on Monday.