TERENCE J SIGAMONY

ISLAMABAD: The federal government has decided to make Attorney General for Pakistan (AGP) a separate Division from the Law and Justice Division for handling all international disputes and arbitrations, the sources said.

The statement issued from the AGP office on Wednesday said that the Prime Minister has notified the office of Attorney General for Pakistan (AGP) to be a separate Division from the Law and Justice Division. The Rules of Business, 1973, stand amended.

It further states: "The newly formed Division shall also be responsible for handling all international disputes and arbitrations." Rules of business have been amended to transfer the responsibility from Law and Justice Division to the office of the AGP, it added.

The international dispute unit shall be appropriately staffed to deal with the ever increasing number of international disputes of commercial, treaty based and national security nature that the federal government faces.

Moreover, the Division shall have a permanent secretary in BPS 21/22, who shall act as an effective liaison between various federal ministries/divisions and the official of the Attorney General.

Raheel Kamran, Chairman Special Committee on Judicial and Electoral Reforms, reacting on the government's decision said that the future of these changes would depend upon future performance of this special cell within the AG Office.

He, however, shared with Business Recorder that for now there is an emergent need for performance audit of all matters involving foreign arbitration agreements, standard operating procedures adopted by the state and its institutions to engage legal experts for; i) seeking advice on their rights, obligations, performance and defaults, and (ii) representing those institutions in the international dispute resolution processes.

He said: "Pakistan has embarrassingly low success rate of almost two per cent compared to 58 per cent of India, which I was informed about in 2015 by the Vice President ICC on my inquiry." "Losing such a case makes the nation indebted, besides causing irreplaceable loss of reputation," he added.

Basically the Law Ministry and the Attorney General Office must account for this and satisfy the nation on transparency of the procedures they had adopted till now while handling the matters involving international dispute resolution mechanisms. Meanwhile, all those law firms and lawyers who had been representing Pakistan without success till date should be blacklisted immediately for future engagements, Raheel said.

According to the legal experts, Pakistan is currently facing 36 cases of different nature at international courts. Even some independent power producers (IPPs) have also filed cases with international arbitrators seeking clearance of their pending dues.

Millions of dollars have been paid to deal with the fallout of major legal battles in world legal forums in damages in several controversial matters, particularly Karkey and Reko Diq cases, which are likely to conclude next year.

On August 22, 2017, the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) awarded Rs80 billion in damages to Karkey Karadeniz Elektrik Uretim AS, a Turkish power company.

According to the ICSID award, Pakistan will not only pay damages amounting to $800 million but is also bound to pay $5.6 million (Rs590 million) per month as interest to Karkey.

The country is also facing a similar situation in the Reko Diq case. The ICSID had dismissed Pakistan's allegations of corruption against Tethyan Copper Company Pvt Ltd (TCC) last year. Later, TCC called for $11.5 billion in damages but Pakistan rejected the claim. The exact amount of award is yet to be determined in this case. Proceedings in this regard are likely to conclude next year.

Pakistan is also facing a $500 million lawsuit by Broadsheet - a firm hired by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to recover offshore plundered money. Recently, Saudi-based Tawairqi Steel Mills also approached the international tribunal against Pakistan, claiming $900 million in damages.

Likewise, a number of IPPs also opted to approach international courts against Pakistan for non-payment of pending dues.