Due to the arbitration proceedings initiated against our country by billionaire Pramod Mittal in the case related to Global Ispat Koksna Industrija Lukavac (GIKIL), the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina could pay dearly.
Thus, the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina yesterday, at the proposal of the Attorney General of Bosnia and Herzegovina, made a decision on the sources of financing obligations for the purpose of conducting international investment arbitration proceedings in the case of the lawsuit of Pramod Mittal, Sangeeta Mittal, Vartika Mittal, Shristi Mittal and Divyesh Mittal against the defendant Bosnia and Herzegovina, Klix.ba reports.
The Council of Ministers of BiH approved up to 800,000 BAM from the budget with the aim of protecting the legal and property interests of BiH in this arbitration procedure.
The funds are intended for the hiring of a specialized law office for handling international investment disputes that will be chosen by the Attorney General of Bosnia and Herzegovina to jointly represent Bosnia and Herzegovina in this arbitration procedure, as well as for the payment of deposits for the work of the arbitration tribunal and the hiring of legal and financial experts.
After published information that Pramod Mittal, an Indian businessman, who was accused of a crime in the amount of 10 million euros committed in the GIKIL Lukavac, for which he settled a deposit in July 2019, is suing Bosnia and Herzegovina(BiH), new details appeared in the public.
Namely, GIKIL from Lukavac was created by the merger of KHK Lukavac and Global infrastructure Holdings Ltd, and after certain changes to the contract, Global Steel Holdings Ltd (GSHL) was listed as a co-founder.
In the whole story, in 2003, the Government of Tuzla Canton (TC), on behalf of the state company KHK, signed a strategic partnership agreement with GSHL and gave it management of its share in the joint company GIKIL.
GSHL is a company in liquidation, and its head was the former chairman of the Supervisory Board of GIKIL, Pramod Mittal, who was arrested in Lukavac in the summer of 2019 on extremely serious charges of having created a criminal group that was involved in withdrawing approximately 21 million BAM from the BiHcompany.
When it comes to the BiH side of the story, Mittal and his associates, i.e. GSHL, were excluded from the story in GIKIL, based on court decisions, i.e. the prosecutor’s proposal that was adopted.
Namely, after the arrest of Mittal and his associates, they were released, and the decision indicated a prohibition measure related to dealing with the call in GIKIL. Everything else is secured by a bail of three million BAM and a 21 million BAMproperty-legal claim.
The Mittal family has now decided to initiate arbitration proceedings against the state of BiH. Mittal is allegedly suing BiH for violating the Agreement between BiH and the Government of the Republic of India, called the BIT.
Mittal now believes that the Government of TC is to blame for everything, and therefore the state of BiH, which he is suing.
Interestingly, however, Mital conducted similar proceedings against Nigeria. Mittal had certain businesses that allegedly failed due to local corruption.
After that, Mittal decided on an arbitration procedure worth as much as 5 billion dollars. The state of Nigeria then agreed to a settlement and decided to pay 500 million dollars to Mittal.
