More than three weeks after it announced the sale of a majority stake in its Indian arm to Vedanta Resources, UK's Cairn Energy Plc has formally applied to the government for approvals, saying it will meet all contractual requirements needed to fructify the deal.
Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs had on July 22 cleared the sale of stake by RIL to BP in 21 blocks.
Campaigners from Hamburg-based (Germany) think-tank World Future Council, along with British charity ActionAid, protested against the Church of England and Middlesbrough Borough Council on Monday for investing their pension funds in UK-based metals and mining company Vedanta Resources Plc (with an $8-billion group turnover), whose reputation for trampling human rights and alleged unclean mining practices has been questioned before.
Although the Oil Ministry has the authority to decide on Reliance selling 30 per cent interest to BP in 23 exploration blocks, including the prize eastern offshore KG-D6 gas fields, the ministry on Tuesday decided to refer the deal to the CCEA, sources privy to the development said.
Essar wants reverse merger of Essar Telecom Holdings Ltd into its listed group firm, India Securities Ltd.
Attributing to people close to the situation, the Financial Times said the failed sale of AIA has strained relationships at the top levels of the US insurer and tensions are growing between Benmosche and Golub.
The Edinburgh-based firm's current application seeking the nod for sale of 40 to 51 per cent in Cairn India, for up to $8.48 billion, has left out three producing properties, including the giant Rajasthan oilfields.
Shares of United Spirits on Monday soared nearly 35 per cent, taking its market valuation higher by Rs 6,211 crore, after the UK-based Diageo Plc said it will buy 53.4 per cent stake in the company for Rs 11,166.5 crore in a multi-structured deal.
Telecom Egypt, which already owns a 45 per cent in Vodafone Egypt, approached UK-based Vodafone about buying the remaining stake.
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.
A day after the government referred its $9.6 billion deal to a panel of ministers; UK's Cairn Energy Plc on Thursday said it has extended the deadline for completion of the sale of a majority stake in its Indian unit to Vedanta Resources by over a month to May 20.
Cut-throat competition, high spectrum costs, and frequent flip-flops in government policies have made it difficult for Vodafone to make money in the country.
The government nod to Reliance Industries selling 30 per cent stake in its oil and gas blocks such as eastern offshore KG-D6 to London-based BP Plc for $7.2 billion hinges on no-objection certificate (NOC) from Canada's Niko Resources and UK's Hardy Oil and Gas.
London-listed mining group Vedanta Resources is running against time to close a USD 9.6 billion deal to acquire majority stake in Cairn India as government approval for the transaction is held up due to issues raised by state-owned ONGC.
ONGC sought opinion from the second highest law officer of the country after its partner Cairn Energy Plc stated that the UK firm's sale of majority stake in Cairn India to Vedanta Resources will not trigger pre-emption rights of the state- owned firm, a top oil ministry official said.
The Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc has been fined 28.59 million pound by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) for breaching competition laws by some of its employees, who handed over price sensitive information to a rival.
ONGC, which is a 30 per cent partner with Cairn India in the giant Rajasthan oil field, had claimed that it had preemption or right of first refusal in Cairn India assets, like the Rajasthan block.
Britain's Cairn Energy has secured a French court order to seize 20 Indian govt properties to recover arbitration award, it is learnt.
Petroleum Minister Murli Deora will meet Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Wednesday in an effort to secure energy assets, including UK-listed Imperial Energy Plc.
Nikos Kardassis will become the next chief executive officer of Jet Airways, taking over the reins from Wolfgang Prock-Schauer who will step down on October 15, 2009.
Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Jitin Prasada, who led the roadshows in the US and Canada, said the roadshows for 70 blocks offered in NELP-VIII and 10 coal bed methane blocks received overwhelming response from investors.
After Vodafone, UK-based Vedanta Resources Plc and Aditya Birla group firm Indian Rayon also face a potential tax demand of around Rs 900 crore and Rs 45 crore, respectively, for their failure to deduct taxes on payments to buy Indian assets, said a senior government official.
The Oil and Natural Gas Corp has deferred investments in Imperial Energy Plc to raise crude oil production and will rather consolidate the western Siberian operations of the UK-based firm it acquired recently.
The company has entered into an exclusive franchise agreement with Tata group's retail venture Trent, which will help in driving the latter's hypermarket format Star Bazaar. Tesco plans to develop new wholesale outlets, which will offer a range of food, grocery and non-food products to small retailers, restaurants, kirana stores and other businesses.
Tesco proposal entailing investment of $110 million has been cleared, sources said after the FIPB meeting held in New Delhi.
The fall in international oil prices notwithstanding, ONGC Videsh Ltd will not revise its pound 12.50 a share buyout of Imperial Energy Corp Plc as the acquisition priced UK-listed firm's in-place oil reserves at $2.5-3 per barrel.
In addition to undertaking to validate prospects identified by the joint venture, GCA employed a play-based exploration methodology on the D3 block to address both the current prospect inventory and the 'yet to find' resource potential. In D3, GCA estimated 9.5 Tcf of inplace reseves. D-3 and D-9 blocks in the same KG basin may hold 9.5 Tcf and 10.8 Tcf of gas reserves respectively, UK-based Hary Oil and Gas Plc said.
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.
The Indian IT major spent a total of Rs 15 crore (Rs 150 million) towards the failed deal, but in the process received Rs 33 crore (Rs 330 million) from the UK firm, as inducement fees. Two of India's leading software services firm were in the race to acquire the London Stock Exchange-listed Axon, but last month HCL Technologies outbid Infosys and acquired the British firm.
ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas arm of state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, will make an offer to acquire shares of the United Kingdom-listed Imperial Energy Corp Plc at 12.50 pounds a share by December 9.
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.
Cairn faces a potential tax demand on an alleged Rs 24,500 crore of capital gains it made when in 2006-07 it transfered all its India assets to a new company, Cairn India.
Reliance announced a rights issue of Rs 53,125 crore, which it said was the biggest in India.
He was chargesheeted for the offences punishable under section 120-B
Thomas Cook has bought stake in Thomas Cook India from Dubai Financial Group for up to Rs 1,336 crore. The group is repurchasing Thomas Cook's brand business, earlier licenced to Dubai Financial Group.
Indian television company NDTV is in advanced stages of negotiations with NBC Universal, a subsidiary of New York Stock Exchange-listed General Electric to sell between 25 and 30 per cent in its UK-based subsidiary NDTV Networks Plc.
The rating agency said it has affirmed and withdrawn long and short term Issuer Default Rating of 'BB' and 'B' and 'BB-' rating on Corus' Euro 800 million 7.5 per cent senior notes.
Bouyed by Indian growth trajectories, Barclays plc on Tuesday said it would infuse $70 million in the country for a period of two years from 2006 to foray into the corporate banking business.
Hutchison Telecom, the Hong Kong- based mobile major, on Tuesday said its first-half profits ended June have risen from the sale of its Indian assets to UK's Vodafone that included a one-time gain of Hong Kong dollars 69.3 billion.
