TIRANA, Oct. 26 – In an expected move after Canada-based Bankers Petroleum, the country’s biggest oil producer, recently concluded its sale deal with a Chinese consortium, the Albanian government has decided to settle its $57 million dispute with the Canadian company at an Arbitration court.
Advised by U.S.-based Curtis law firm, the National Agency for Natural Resources, a government agency overseeing concession contracts in the oil and mining industries, has decided to challenge a late August decision issued by an expert panel led by PwC, one of the Big Four auditors, which ordered the Albanian government to pay back Canada-based Bankers Petroleum $37 million, $20 million less than Bankers was initially supposed to pay in instalments.
The initial $57 million tax dispute involved $250 million in disputed costs from the company’s operations in 2011.
“The National Agency for Natural Resources (AKBN) after long consulting the energy and industry ministry and the State Advocate’s office decided to appeal the international experts’ decision to the Arbitration Court regarding the Bankers case,” the agency said in a statement.
“AKBN believes this case with high public sensitivity has had the attention of all stakeholders involved in this process and as such will receive a fair trial at the Arbitration Court as we are convinced that the elements disclosed in the audit report, but turned down by experts are enough for this Court to rule in favour of the Albanian state,” it added.
In early 2016, Bankers Petroleum which operated in Albania for more than a decade becoming the country’s lead exporter, suspended arbitration proceedings against Albania at the Paris-based ICC International Court of Arbitration by agreeing to hire a third-party auditor while paying the disputed amount in instalments.
“If Bankers were dissatisfied with the decision, it’s sure that they would have made use of their right to Arbitration,” Curtis wrote in a recent letter to the National Agency for Natural Resources.
Bankers Petroleum, which has recently been taken over by China’s Geo Jade for C$575 million (€392 mln), posted record high losses of about $34 million in the first half of this year due to a slump in international oil prices affecting oil production, exports and government revenue.
