Oh, the Irony: Satyam is Sanskrit for 'Truth'

The Indian government has superseded the board of Satyam Computer Services, the outsourcing giant that announced this week that its chairman had concealed $1 billion in losses.  It will appoint 10 nominee-directors, who will meet within a week and make a decision on a new management team for the company, whose name means "truth" or "this is true" in Sanskrit.

The Big Four firm PricewaterhouseCoopers is now under fire for signing off on Satyam's financial statements for several years. In a statement sent by email, the auditing firm defended itself: "The audits were conducted by Pricewaterhouse in accordance with applicable auditing standards and were supported by appropriate audit evidence."

More Satyam news: A day after his shocking confession of fraud, disgraced former chairman and founder B. Ramalinga Raju is reportedly missing. His lawyer said that he was in Hyderabad, but he missed a scheduled meeting with members of the Securities and Exchange Board of India on Friday.

Like regulators and government officials in the United States responding to the Bernard L. Madoff scandal, officials in India are vowing to end corporate fraud. The question: is that even possible?

A United States law firm, Izard Nobel LLP, announced it has initiated a class-action lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, on behalf of those who purchased American Depository Receipts (ADRs) of Satyam Computer Services Ltd. The Institute of Chartered Accountants in India will serve a show cause notice on PricewaterhouseCoopers in a week after collecting information, according to the Economic Times. Other legal actions will likely follow.