by the firmin 2012 elliott management a buccaneering american hedge fund which held distressed argentine bonds seized a handsome tall ship belonging to argentinas navy recently french courts ruled that a stifled creditor could seize a business jet belonging to the government of congobrazzaville while it was being serviced at a french airport as well as 30 million from a bank account of the countrys state oil companythe indian government however plans to contest any enforcement proceeding brought by cairnthe indian government naturally will challenge such seizure but to save the assets it may have to pawn money equivalent to the value of assets in some form of financial security such as bank guarantee the court will return such a guarantee to india if it does not find merit in cairns case but the surety will be passed on to cairn if the court finds that india had failed to honour its obligation a source saidlast month the finance ministry said that the tribunal improperly exercised jurisdiction over a national tax dispute that the republic of india never offered andor agreed to arbitratethe ministry called the 2006 reorganisation of cairns india business for listing on the local bourses as abusive tax avoidance scheme that were a gross violation of indian tax laws thereby depriving cairns alleged investments of any protection under the indiauk bilateral investment treatythe 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 it listed its indian assets on the bse five years after that the government passed a retroactive tax law and billed cairn rs 10247 crore plus interest and penalty for the reorganisation tied to the flotation the state then expropriated and liquidated cairns remaining shares in the indian entity seized dividends and withheld tax refunds to recover a part of the demandcairn challenged the move before an arbitration tribunal in the hague which in december awarded it 12 billion over rs 8800 crore plus costs and interest which totals 1725 million rs 12600 crore as of december 2020the company which previously said the ruling was binding and enforceable under international treaty law has been since then courting indian government officials to get the money paid but the government has not agreed to pay