LIVE TV
India
Recommended Stories
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has dismissed the plea of two Australian coal firms, Vale Australia Pty Ltd (Vale) and AMCI Pty Ltd, against an International Court of Arbitration`s (ICA) order to them for payment of about USD 159 million as damages to the Steel Authority of India(SAIL).
The ICA had also asked the two firms to pay additionally 80 per cent of the SAIL`s legal costs, including USD 320,000 as expenses and USD 160,000 as costs paid by the Indian public sector company to the tribunal.
"While it may be possible to argue that another view is also possible, that by itself does not constitute a valid ground for a court to interfere (in a foreign award) under section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act.
"Consequently, this court is unable to find any error in the quantification of damages by the tribunal. All objections by Vale and AMCI to the award of March 10, 2011 passed by the tribunal (ICA) are rejected with costs of Rs one lakh each to be paid by them to SAIL within four weeks," the court said.
The dispute between the parties arose when Vale and AMCI failed to meet the SAIL demand of total one million metric tonnes (MT) of coking coal in 2007, under a long-term agreement (LTA) of April 23, 2007 between them.
The two companies managed to supply only 246,539 MT and a balance of 753,461 MT of coking coal remained to be supplied.
The matter was presented for dispute resolution in March 2009 before the ICA, which agreed with SAIL`s contention that there was a breach of the LTA by the two Australian companies.
"The court (high court) finds no error in the tribunal`s determination that Vale and AMCI were in breach of the LTA of April 23, 2007," Justice Muralidhar said while holding the two companies guilty of the breach of contract.
