SHC freezes Hascol's assets on Mena Energy application.

KARACHI -- While allowing an execution application of a foreign firm, the Sindh High Court has ordered the attachment of assets owned by Hascol Petroleum Ltd till further orders.

A single-judge bench headed by Justice Adnan Iqbal Chaudhry also barred Hascol from transferring its shares in three subsidiary companies together with any bonus and right shares, withdrawing or transferring the credit balances of its bank accounts and charging in any way the immovable properties listed in the execution application.

Mena Energy DMCC, registered as a firm in Dubai, filed a foreign execution application under Section 44-A of the Civil Procedure Code (CPC) for enforcing a foreign judgment passed in June 2018 by the High Court of Justice, Business and Property Courts of England and Wales, Commercial Court.

In the foreign judgment, the decree holder (Mena Energy) had been awarded $9,500,000 against the judgment debtor (Hascol) and the execution was filed at Karachi as the latter has assets here.

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The bench observed that the foreign decree was conclusive between the parties within the meaning of Section 13 CPC and was executable under section 44-A CPC and thus, the objections of the judgment debtor were dismissed and the execution was allowed.

It further stated that under the settlement agreement, the judgement debtor (JD) agreed to pay a sum of $9,500,000 in full and final settlement of the decree holder (DH) claim pending before the foreign court, in four installments commencing from June 2018, but JD did not make any payment nor did it provide the agreed bank guarantees.

The bench in its judgment said clause 3 of the settlement agreement recognised that the JD to make payment to the DH out of Pakistan and the JD would be required to obtain the approval of State Bank of Pakistan and it undertook to use its best endeavours to obtain such...