OVL hires PWC for its expanding overseas portfolio
Aggressive expansion overseas has prompted ONGC Videsh to select PriceWaterhouseCoopers for advice on international taxation for its growing portfolio.
For nine months OVL worked jointly with PWC, KPMG and Ernst & Young to explain its scope of work. "We jointly drew up three RFP documents," reveals a source.
"OVL then merged the RFPs and technically qualified the three of us." When price bids were called, PWC emerged lowest bidder. OVL's aggressive expansion overseas has exposed it to complex and unfamiliar tax regimes across the globe.
"Our overseas business activities are growing," reveals a source. "We are in Russia, Vietnam, Sudan, Myanmar, Libya, Syria, Iran, Iraq and we also want to get into Saudi Arabia and other parts of Africa.
Tax and accounting laws are very different in all these places. We have to comply with very specific accounting requirements in each country."