HC upholds arbitral award against Indian real estate firm

The Delhi High Court has upheld an arbitration award of over Rs 45 crore with interest in favour of a Cyprus-based investment firm which had terminated its agreement with an Indian real-estate firm for its failure to fulfil its obligations under the contract.
The order by a bench of Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Yogesh Khanna came on an appeal by the promoters of the real estate firm against a single-judge order upholding the arbitral award by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).
The ICC had directed the Indian firm, Logix Group, and its promoters to pay Rs 45 crore with 18 per cent interest from March 2011 till date of payment to the foreign company Alpha Tiger Cyprus Investments.

The ICC had also imposed costs of the proceedings on the Indian firm which too was upheld by the high court.
The high court observed that the tribunal had only ordered the return of the amounts that the foreign entity had invested towards development of some real estate projects by the two of them.
Subsequent to the order of the division bench, which dismissed the appeal by the promoters of Logix group, Alpha Tiger moved a plea for enforcement of the award.

On the plea of enforcement of the award, Justice Jayant Nath on May 15 issued warrants of attachment against the property of the Indian firm's founder and promoters and also directed them to file the updated statements of their bank accounts for the last three years.

The court said that if the promoters fail to give this detail within four weeks from May 15, they shall be present in person on August 17.
It also directed the promoters to maintain status quo regarding the investments in the movable assets that have been listed by the foreign company in its plea.
The matter between the two had gone for arbitration as the Indian company had failed to fulfil its obligation to arrange for the term loan facility as stipulated under the agreement.
The two had entered into an agreement to develop various real-estate projects called Galaxia, Technika and Technova.