The Supreme Court of Pakistan has sought contract documents of Mincor Resources NL that made the Tethyan Copper Company (TCC) its representative.
A three-member bench of the apex court, led by Chief Justice (CJ) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and comprising Justice Gulzar Ahmed and Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed heard the Reko Diq case on Thursday.
Counsel for TCC, Khalid Anwar, told the court that the exemption granted to TCC was extended even after the passage of seven years.
Anwar said the Australian TCC was registered in 2007 in Pakistan and that the company had only entered into an agreement in 2002.
Justice Gulzar inquired from Anwar if the Balochistan government had approved the merger between the TCC and the US based BHP Company, adding, that the TCC does not seem to be a direct party to the Reko Diq agreement.
Anwar told the court that the TCC was included in the agreement as a representative of Mincor Resources NL on October 24, 2000.
CJ sought the documentation authorising TCC as a representative for Mincor, adding that agent companies do not possess absolute powers of a principal company while conducting business and that the representing company performs limited operations only.
Chaudhry further inquired under what law was TCC authorised to work with complete powers of the principal company. The bench had taken up a petition of Dr Abdul Haq Baloch seeking a restraining order against the federal and provincial governments from attending the proceedings of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and the International Chambers of Commerce (ICC) in view of an earlier court order asking the Balochistan government to request the international arbitrators to withhold their hearing until a decision by the court on the matter.
Tethyan Copper Company, a Canadian and Chilean consortium of Barrick Gold and Antofagasta Minerals formed to explore gold and copper, had invoked the jurisdiction of the ICC and ICSID against the government of Pakistan for not renewing the prospective Reko Diq minerals license in accordance with Balochistan Mining Rules 2002.
The ICSID has already reserved its judgment on the dispute.
