New Delhi: Air India is controlled by the Indian government so much that they are alter egos , Cairn had said in the lawsuit filed with the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Air India has time till mid-July to challenge the lawsuit filed by Britain’s Cairn Energy PLC demanding that a US federal court force the airline to pay a USD 1.26 billion arbitration award it had won against the Indian government in December last year, sources said.
Air India is controlled by the Indian government so much that they are “alter egos”, Cairn had said in the lawsuit filed with the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. The court should hold the airline company liable for the arbitration award, the company had said.
A three-member international arbitration tribunal that consisted of one judge appointed by India had unanimously in December overturned levy of taxes on Cairn retrospectively and ordered refund of shares sold, dividend confiscated and tax refunds withheld to recover such demand.
The government of India, despite participating in the arbitration proceeding over four years, has not accepted the award and has filed a ‘setting aside’ petition in a court in The Netherlands – the seat of the arbitration.