Centre seeks to restrain Reliance Industries stake sale to Saudi Aramco

NEW DELHI: The Delhi high court on Friday asked Reliance Industries Ltd and British Gas to disclose their assets after the Centre sought to restrain them from disposing assets — including RIL’s plan to sell a 20% stake to oil giant Saudi Aramco.
In an application filed in September, the government had sought curbs citing the failure of the two companies to honour their payment under a $4.5-billion international arbitral award in the Panna-Mukta and Tapti (PMT) production-sharing contracts.The PMT contract of 1994 comes to an end on Saturday.
During arguments in the case, the government sought the court’s direction to RIL and BG to secure $4.5 billion towards the arbitration award. Asking RIL directors to file an affidavit disclosing the company’s assets, the HC’s commercial bench said it would examine the issue at its next hearing on February 6. The government has insisted that RIL and BG must provide adequate security.

RIL did not respond to a questionnaire sent by TOI till late at night. Calls and text messages sent to the company seeking its response also went unanswered.
Citing several newspaper reports in its application, including the proposed sale to Saudi Aramco, the government told the court, “RIL is in a massive group debt of Rs 2.88 trillion (Rs 2.88 lakh crore). It is in the process of selling, transferring, mortgaging, disposing of, alienating and creating third-party interest in the movable and immovable properties to cover its debt.”
The Centre further argued that “RIL in future may also liquidate/sell its assets and properties” and there would be nothing left for the government to execute its arbitral award. The government said it has no knowledge of the “business plan” of RIL and neither has any control over the same.
RIL, India’s largest company, had announced plans to sell stake to Saudi Aramco in a deal estimated to be worth $15 billion. The transaction has been in the works for several months.
According to the government, which is fighting the arbitration with RIL since 2010, the company and its partner appropriated huge sums of money in violation of the production sharing contract in the PMT gas and oil fields. In 2016, the tribunal finally decided what part of the amount was wrongly appropriated by RIL and its partner and on the basis of that award, the government has computed that $3.8 billion, excluding interest, is to be paid to it. With interest, the amount now comes to $4.5 billion (over Rs 30,000 crore).
In its application filed before the Delhi HC, the government pleaded that it was forced to file for execution of the award because RIL and its partner were not paying their dues despite several reminders.
The government is already fighting for execution of another arbitral award of $2 billion against RIL for alleged “undue enrichment” owing to migration of gas from state-run ONGC block to its KG D-6 field off the Andhra coast.