Vodafone says received transfer pricing order in India

A vendor selling ''paani puri'', a traditional Indian snack, walks past closed shops displaying an advertisement for Vodafone in Jammu May 22, 2012.

REUTERS - Vodafone Group Plc(VOD.L) said on Thursday it has received a transfer pricing order in India over the issue of shares by its unit Vodafone India Services Private Ltd. (VISPL).

The order is linked to a transfer pricing dispute in the fiscal year ended March 2008, which Vodafone has challenged before the Dispute Resolution Panel of the Indian income tax department, it said in a statement.

"As this latest order relates to a share subscription, and share subscriptions are not covered by transfer pricing rules either in India or internationally, we will be challenging the order as it has no basis in law," it said.

Transfer pricing is the value at which companies trade products, services or assets including shares between units, mostly the parent company, in different countries.

Vodafone, the largest corporate investor in India, has repeatedly clashed with Indian authorities over taxes since it bought Hutchison Whampoa's (0013.HK) local mobile business in 2007.

(Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy and Sumeet Chatterjee; Editing by Anupama Dwivedi)