The object of the brothers' dispute not theirs to haggle over, says New Delhi. Indian billionaire brothers Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani are locked in a private feud over India's natural gas assets. The saga highlights how such ultra-high-net-worth individuals' control over major industries can pose broad economic risks.

The Indian government has filed an independent appeal in the country's Supreme Court in hopes of resolving the matter, according to the Times of India. The givernment holds that the brothers are squabbling over an asset that is part of the national heritage.

Memorandum of understanding

Family businesses dominate India's economy. The rapid growth of India in recent years has been a driving force behind western banks' moves to set up wealth-management operations in India and -- with a view to South Asia's large diaspora -- abroad.

The Ambanis have been squabbling since their Reliance company split into Reliance Industries, run by Mukesh Ambani (the world's wealthiest Indian, according to Forbes), and Reliance Natural Resources, run by Anil Ambani, in 2005. In an attempt to resolve the dispute, the companies recently agreed that Reliance Industries would sell Reliance Natural Resources natural at a sharp discount.

The Indian government says the gas isn't the Ambanis to wheel and deal over, and that their habit of acting as though India's natural resources were "their personal and family property" is discouraging investment and so thwarting the country's industrialization program.

Seema Desa, an analyst with the U.K.-based risk consultancy Eurasia Group, told Reuters then the Ambanis view that a memorandum of understanding between two family-owned firms implies that the wealthy have the power to make their own rules -- and that India's government has no choice but to try to prove the brothers wrong.

A hearing in the government's case has been set for 1 September. -FWR

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