“Instead of fighting” the electric company union, or the train company union, he added, “they just cut salaries horizontally.”

According to European Union law, a company can request to file for bankruptcy in the country where it has its "centre of main interest", and creditors will fight to avoid the worst regimes.

He first studied physics at university before being persuaded by his father, a senior judge and a noted Sanskrit scholar, to work for Union Carbide, a chemicals company.