Retro tax: Amid stand-off, Cairn Energy holds ‘constructive’ meeting with Union finance secretary

Amid Cairn Energy’s reported move to recover a $1.4-billion arbitral award in its favour by attaching and seizing Indian assets overseas and New Delhi’s rumoured plans to contest the award, the Edinburgh-headquartered energy company’s chief executive Simon Thomson met Union finance secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey here on Thursday. While the development kept alive hopes of a reconciliation, Thomson, as he came out of the meeting, said the talks were ‘constructive’, without elaborating.

“We just want to go in and have a conversation and see what the government has got to say, but we look forward to a positive resolution of this,” Thomson had said minutes before the meeting.

Neither the company nor the Indian government came out with official statements about the meeting till late evening.