UK’s Cairn Energy Plc on Tuesday said it is taking all necessary actions to access the USD 1.7 billion it was awarded by an international arbitration tribunal after overturning a retroactive tax demand slapped by the Indian government.
The Scottish firm invested in the oil and gas sector in India in 1994 and a decade later it made a huge oil discovery in Rajasthan. In 2006 it listed its Indian assets on the BSE. Five years after that the government passed retroactive tax law and billed Cairn Rs 10,247 crore plus interest and penalty for the reorganisation tied to the flotation.
The state then expropriated and liquidated Cairn’s remaining shares in the Indian entity, seized dividends and withheld tax refunds to recover a part of the demand.
