India Files Appeal In $1.2 Billion Cairn Arbitration Case: Report

India has appealed towards an order by a global tribunal to pay $1.2 billion in damages, plus different prices, to Cairn Power in a long-running tax dispute, two sources with direct information of the matter instructed Reuters. London-listed Cairn in December was awarded damages of $1.2 billion-plus curiosity and prices, taking the present complete to over $1.7 billion. India, which is now liable to make this fee, had mentioned beforehand it might problem the order.

The attraction, filed on Monday in a Dutch court docket, comes as Cairn is pulling out all of the stops to get well the damages award, together with hiring a group of asset restoration specialists. It additionally comes weeks forward of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s go to to India to construct deeper enterprise ties.

India has appealed on the grounds that taxation-related issues will not be lined in its bilateral funding treaty with the UK below which the case was filed, and subsequently the arbitration tribunal doesn’t have the jurisdiction to rule on the matter, one of many sources mentioned. Cairn and India’s finance ministry didn’t reply to a request for remark.

Cairn has already filed instances in native courts in the US, UK, France, Netherlands, Singapore and Quebec to implement the arbitration award, and there’s prone to be extra enforcement actions in different international locations, Dennis Hranitzky, head of the sovereign litigation follow at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, a regulation agency representing the corporate, instructed Reuters.

This primarily signifies that as soon as it obtains orders from the native courts, Cairn can determine and seize Indian property, which might embody financial institution accounts, Air India planes, and property of different Indian state-owned firms, he mentioned.

“Cairn has appointed a group of one of the best asset-tracing and restoration specialists within the enterprise to gather towards India,” Hranitzky mentioned, including that the corporate will do all the things it takes to get well the complete quantity of the arbitral award if settlement discussions will not be fruitful.

Cairn has mentioned the cash finally belongs to its shareholders – which embody giant traders resembling BlackRock, Constancy and Franklin Templeton, and the ramifications of India not honouring the award will “run throughout the worldwide funding group extra broadly”.