While the Microsoft-Nokia deal has been largely approved by shareholders and regulators, there are still a couple of obstacles left in its path, such as the issue with the Indian government who claims that Nokia owes them taxes. Nokia has since offered the courts $369 million to unfreeze it assets, and it looks like the courts have decided to take Nokia up on their offer by allowing Nokia to finally sell its Chennai manufacturing unit to Microsoft, thus allowing the acquisition to proceed as per normal. Had the courts not accepted Nokia’s offer, the company would have been forced to exclude the factory from the deal, which could throw a wrench into the proceedings.
In any case it looks like everything is back on track for now, but Nokia is said to still owe the country of India around $3.4 billion in taxes, which includes penalties for non-payment of tax and interest. Nokia is currently contesting the amount, but if they lose, that’s the amount that the Finnish company would have to pay. It’s definitely not a small amount and it has been reported that Nokia’s shares actually took a 2% dive as the outcome of the case remained an uncertainty.