Buy us for Rs 3K cr or pay Rs 1,931 cr: Sahara to Jet
Air Sahara, questioning Jet Airways’ failure to acquire it, has filed a claim of Rs 3,020 crore before an arbitration tribunal here and sought honouring of the share purchase agreement (SPA) reached by the two parties in January.
In its prayer before the arbitration tribunal headed by British judge Lord Stein on November 20, Air Sahara sought Rs 3,020 crore from Jet toward execution of the SPA along with recovery of inter-line business revenue that the latter accrued for nearly three months.
As part of its prayer, Sahara sought a direction from the tribunal that Naresh Goyal-promoted Jet should execute the SPA and close the transaction as per directions of the tribunal.
Justice SP Bharucha and Justice BP Jeevan Reddy, both retired judges of the Supreme Court, are on the panel as nominees of Jet and Air Sahara respectively.
Alternatively, Sahara claimed if “Jet Airways is unwilling to buy Air Sahara, then Jet is liable to pay over Rs 1,931 crore as damage, compensation, inter-line revenue etc.”
Jet on the other hand, filed its claim a day after the deadline set by the tribunal, seeking refund of Rs 500 crore paid by it as advance to Air Sahara along with interest. Officials of Jet in Mumbai and Sahara in Lucknow declined to comment.
The arbitration tribunal had directed both the parties vide its procedural order on October 11, 2006 to file claims by November 20. However, Jet filed its claim only on November 20, sources said.
In its prayer, Sahara Group contended that the SPA between the two parties was still valid, a position it had taken before a Lucknow court after Jet let the June 21 deadline for completing the deal pass.
Meanwhile, sources said that the Bombay High Court accepted Jet’s plea for replacing ICICI Bank as the Rs 1,500 crore-escrow account agent.
With the consent of Air Sahara, the High Court allowed Jet to replace ICICI Bank with State Bank of India for the guarantee given to Sahara Group. Absence of regulatory clearances had played spoilsport in the deal, which was billed as India’s first and largest takeover deal.
Jet had announced in January that it will buy Sahara for $500 million, much less than the 750 million to billion-dollar enterprise value quoted by Sahara’s consultants Ernst & Young.
—PTI
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