British oil firm Cairn Energy plc on Sunday said its shareholders, including top financial institutions of the world, expect the use of the company’s “strong powers of enforcement” to recover USD 1.4 billion from the Indian government should it not keep its word of honouring international arbitration tribunal awards on retrospective taxes.
Cairn has already moved courts in the US, UK, Netherlands, Canada, France, Singapore, Japan, UAE and Cayman Islands to get the December 21 international arbitration tribunal award registered and recognised – the first step before it can seek seizure of the Indian government assets such as bank accounts, payments to state-owned entities, aeroplanes and ships in those jurisdictions, in case New Delhi does not return the value of the shares seized and sold, dividend confiscated and tax refund stopped to adjust a Rs 10,247 crore tax demand raised using retrospective legislation.
