Case 284 - Out of India: Enron and the Politics of Economic Liberalization

by ISD - Georgetown University
$ 4.50

Parvi, Tinaz and Thomas Rotnem

The controversy that dogged Enron Corporation’s Dabhol power project in the Indian state of Maharashtra for more than a decade is the subject of this case study. Starting in 1992 the project, India’s single-largest foreign direct investment at the time, became mired in massive legal wrangling. Economic imperatives, domestic politics, and nationalist sentiment combined to create the twists and turns that the project took over the next decade. Enron’s 2002 bankruptcy and the scandal surrounding it only added to the disarray that would eventually lead to the project’s 2005 takeover by Ratnagiri Gas and Power Private Limited, a state-owned company.