UK's Cairn Energy Plc has offered to forego $500 million and invest that amount in any oil and gas or renewable energy project identified by the Indian government if New Delhi agrees to honour an international arbitration award and returns the value of loss it incurred because of being taxed retrospectively, sources said. 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 2006-07, it listed its Indian assets on the BSE. Five years after that the government passed a retroactive tax law and billed Cairn Rs 10,247 crore plus interest and penalty for the reorganisation tied to the flotation.
The question mark over Vodafone Idea's survival is gone after the government's telecom package, managing director and chief executive officer Ravinder Takkar said in an interaction recently. The extended moratorium for spectrum payments and adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues has indeed ensured that Vodafone Idea survives, at least for the time being, but questions remain. Answers to those questions may determine the future of Vodafone Idea and its power to stay in a difficult telecom market in the coming years.
The bill to nullify retrospective taxation offers a fair solution within the framework of Indian law and Parliamentary sovereignty to companies which have been subjected to such demands, Finance Secretary T V Somanathan said on Thursday. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman introduced 'The Taxation Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021' in the Lok Sabha that seeks to withdraw tax demands made using a 2012 retrospective legislation to tax the indirect transfer of Indian assets. The Bill provides for the withdrawal of tax demand made on "indirect transfer of Indian assets if the transaction was undertaken before May 28, 2012 (i.e. the day the retrospective tax legislation came into being)."
Kapoor is an MBA from XLRI, Jamshedpur, and has a Chemical Engineering degree from BITS, Pilani.
Diageo, which had acquired Mallya's United Spirits nearly six years ago, is claiming $40 million paid to the liquor tycoon as part of an alleged breach of agreement.
The brand integration not only marks the completion of the largest telecom merger in the world, but will also set the company on its future journey to offer strong digital experiences to 1 billion Indians on its 4G network.
Foreign banks set the template in consumer banking in its infancy, but have almost vacated this booming space.
The government last month announced freeing of auto fuel prices from its control, resulting in a Rs 3.50 per litre hike in petrol prices as domestic rates got linked to global movements.
The two parties -- the Centre and Vodafone -- have sought a few more weeks to decide on the matter.
British oil firm Cairn Energy Plc on Tuesday said it has identified Indian sovereign assets overseas, which it can seize in the event of New Delhi failing to return over USD 1.7 billion that an international arbitration tribunal has ordered after rescinding a retrospective tax demand.
UK-based Cairn Energy PLC on Tuesday said it will drop litigations to seize Indian properties in countries ranging from France to the US, within a couple of days of getting a USD 1 billion refund resulting from the scrapping of a retrospective tax law.
Faced with prospect of its assets across the globe being seized just like Pakistan and Venezuela, the government decided to scrap retrospective taxation but the international embarrassment could have been avoided had 'attached' shares of Britain's Cairn Energy Plc not been sold, according to tax and legal experts. On Thursday, the government introduced a Bill in Parliament to scrap the tax rule that gave the tax department power to go 50 years back and slap capital gains levies wherever ownership had changed hands overseas but business assets were in India. The 2012 legislation was used to levy a cumulative of Rs 1.10 lakh crore of tax on 17 entities, including UK telecom giant Vodafone, but substantial punitive action was taken only in the case of Cairn.
Britain's Cairn Energy has secured a French court order to seize 20 Indian govt properties to recover arbitration award, it is learnt.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday reiterated that an international arbitration ruling on India's sovereign right to taxation sets the wrong precedent, but said the government is looking at how best it can sort out the issue arising out of New Delhi being ordered to return $1.2 billion plus interest and cost to UK's Cairn Energy Plc. The government, which participated in an international arbitration brought by the Scottish firm against being taxed retrospectively, has appealed against The Hague based tribunal's ruling asking the government to return the value of shares expropriated and liquidated, tax refunds withheld and dividend seized to recover a wrongly levied retroactive tax demand.
State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp on Monday said UK's Cairn Energy Plc cannot sell a majority stake in Cairn India to Vedanta Resources without its consent.
A day after agreeing to sell majority stake in its India subsidiary for $8.48 billion, UK's Cairn Energy Plc top management on Tuesday met Oil Minister Murli Deora and other key officials to clear any regulatory roadblocks to the deal with Vedanta Resources.
Cairn India on Friday said its UK-based parent Cairn Energy Plc is unlikely to exit completely from the company.
Edinburgh-based Cairn said its Alpha-1S1 well in the sea between Greenland and Canada found oil over a 400 meter section and encountered gas reserves, the company said.
UK's Cairn Energy Plc on Tuesday said it will seek shareholder nod for sale of majority stake in its Indian arm, Cairn India, to London-listed Vedanta Resources Plc for up to $8.48 billion on October 7.
British energy firm Cairn Energy Plc on Thursday said it will pay all taxes due, both in India and the United Kingdom, on the $8.48 billion it will gain from selling a majority stake in its Indian arm to Vedanta Resources.
London Stock Exchange-listed Essar Energy Plc plans to bid for coal-bed methane (CBM) and shale gas blocks in Indonesia next month.
The UK-based Standard Chartered Plc moved the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India for approval to float 220 million IDRs.
Cairn joins a slew of multinational firms including Vodafone Group Plc and Royal Dutch Shell Plc that have been slapped with retrospective tax demands by Indian authorities.
The onus of the tax dues of Rs 22,100 crore on Vodafone India's British parent could also fall on the merged entity.
UK's Cairn Energy Plc plans to bring lawsuits in the US and other countries to pierce the corporate veil between the Indian government and its owned companies such as in oil and gas, shipping, airline and banking sectors, to seize their overseas assets to recover $1.2 billion ordered by an international arbitration tribunal. The firm has moved courts in the US, UK, Canada, France, Singapore, the Netherlands and three other countries to register the December 2020 arbitration tribunal ruling that overturned the Indian government's Rs 10,247 crore demand in back taxes and ordered New Delhi to return $1.2 billion in value of shares it had sold, dividends seized and tax refunds withheld to recover the tax demand. With the government so far refusing to honour the arbitration award and instead choosing to challenge it, Cairn is looking to enforce it by seizing overseas Indian assets, Dennis Hranitzky, head of the sovereign litigation practice at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, a law firm representing the company, told PTI.
The company no longer sees the London listing as necessary to access capital and the deal will simplify Vedanta's corporate structure.
It is alleged that the company floated 32 subsidiaries in several tax haven countries to bring foreign funds to India through sham transactions.
Financial services major Citigroup's top executive Tom King is leaving the company after 20 years of service and is likely to join Barclays Plc, a media report said.
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Cairn India said the company board has accepted Elango's resignation.
After Air India, Britain's Cairn Energy PLC plans to target assets of state-owned firms and banks in countries from the US to Singapore as it looks to ramp up efforts to recover the amount due from the Indian government after winning an arbitration against levy of retrospective taxes. A lawyer representing the company said Cairn will bring lawsuits in several countries to make state-owned firms liable to pay the $1.2 billion plus interest and penalties that are due from the Indian government. Last month, Cairn brought a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York pleading that Air India is controlled by the Indian government so much that they are 'alter egos' and the airline should be held liable for the arbitration award.
Reliance announced a rights issue of Rs 53,125 crore, which it said was the biggest in India.
The British mobile phone operator was widely expected to go for an international arbitration after its talks with the Indian government failed to find a solution last year.
Cairn has already taken steps to have the arbitration award recognised in nine major jurisdictions such as the US, UK, France, the Netherlands, Singapore and Canada's Quebec province, where Indian sovereign assets have been identified. It hasn't said what it might go after but assets could include Air India's planes, vessels belonging to the Shipping Corporation of India and property owned by state banks.
Tesco was the first global retailer to apply for multi- brand retailing in India.
'There is a long-term bull market that commodities will witness. This can take 2-3 years to start. There have been some large moves in foreign exchange. We have seen the pound depreciate by 25 per cent against dollar. We have seen the yen appreciate against the dollar. When the markets start stabilising, these trends will reverse. This will give good trading opportunity. But it is not clear whether any one should do anything yet,' says Robert Morrice, MD, Barclays Wealth.
US District Judge Beryl Howell in Minneapolis denied Ranbaxy's request, the court filing showed.
AG is of the view that there is no point in dragging the matter further when it has already been "struck down" by one international forum, and also by the top Indian court.
President Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Rajapaksa will transform Sri Lanka's political landscape after Thursday's electoral triumph, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy, veteran Colombo watcher.
The world's third largest energy firm BP Plc has rubbished India's claims that oil speculators are responsible for a global surge in crude oil prices, saying high prices were a result of production struggling to keep pace with the demand.
John Leighfield, chairman (global group), RM plc, said, "We will have to take a concrete decision after weighing all options. The education scene in the country faces a major financial resources crunch and incorporating RM's educational software and services might not be a viable proposition for many schools in India only due to this." However, the company is keen on servicing clients in the country's education segment with time.
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