gained the proper to seize Indian state assets in France worth quite €20m (£17m) as a part of a long-running tax row. A French tribunal ordered a freeze on about 20 properties in central Paris as Cairn increases pressure on the Indian government over disputed tax claims. Cairn said it wanted an “amicable settlement” within the $1.2bn (£870m) row. Sources said the Indian government would seek “legal remedies” when it received notice from the French court. Edinburgh-based oil and gas exploration firm Cairn Energy is in hand with the Indian government over a 2014 retrospective bill, when the country’s tax office seized the tenth stake in Indian operations that Cairn was trying to sell. Cairn took the difficulty to a world tribunal, which awarded the corporate $1.7bn in costs and damages in December 2020. The Indian government has appealed against this. However, the energy firm has been identifying assets that it might seize within the absence of a settlement, including some belonging to Air India. The award by the French court is “a necessary preparatory step to taking ownership of the properties and ensures that the proceeds of any sales would flow from to Cairn”, the corporate said. David Nisbet, director for group corporate affairs at Cairn Energy, told the BBC’s Today program: “It may be a long-running story, unfortunately, and one we wished hadn’t actually taken place. “Clearly what we wish to try and do is locate an agreed amicable settlement with the govt of India,” he said. “But this is often all just a part of a process of saying: ‘Look India, we want to earnestly engage’, but we even have a legal duty to safeguard the rights of our shareholders.” He said that over six months after the ruling by the international tribunal, despite discussions in Delhi on twofold, India has not said it’ll honor it. “We must protect the rights of our shareholders,” he said. “And our international shareholders, who have waited patiently for seven and half years, would expect us to try and do so.” The Indian government has said that it doesn’t recognize international tribunal awards, which tax may be a sovereign matter. Mr. Nisbet said that Cairn Energy had never questioned the correctness of any government to levy taxes. However, he said that the Indian government had fully participated within the five-year international arbitration process, which it had been a signatory to an investment treaty between the united kingdom and India. Cairn expects the Indian government to honor both the ruling and therefore the treaty. The Indian government declined to comment, but sources said it had “not received any notice, order or communication, during this regard, from any French court”. “We try to determine the facts, and whenever such an order is received, the govt of India will take appropriate legal remedies in consultation with its counsels,” the sources said. The sources added that the govt filed an application on 22 March to line aside from the award by the international tribunal within the Hague Court of Appeal, adding that the govt of India “will vigorously defend its case”.
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