Oswal trial adjourned amid talks

The high-profile lawsuit has been adjourned as the Indian business couple and the ANZ engage in settlement talks.

Courtroom where the Oswal's case is going on in Melbourne. There are 3 full benches of QCs, SCs, lawyers, barristers etc, around 38 lawyers in all. (Stuart McEvoy/The Australian)

A billion-dollar-plus lawsuit between Indian business couple Pankaj and Radhika Oswal and the ANZ has been adjourned this morning amid talks between the parties.

Radhika Oswal was due to give evidence this morning in the Victorian Supreme Court, which is hearing a case in which the couple claim their Burrup Fertiliser empire was sold at an undervalue by the ANZ and receivers PPB after being seized from them in a dispute over the hundreds of millions of dollars they owed the bank.

The hearing has been adjourned to 2.15pm this afternoon.

The court has heard allegations from the Oswals that the 2010-11 deal selling their 65 per cent stake in Burrup advantaged gas supplier Apache at their expense.

Apache, which was also sued in the case, has reached a settlement deal with the Oswals.

Norwegian fertiliser company Yara, which owned the remainder of Burrup and was also a target of the Oswals’ lawsuit, has also reached an in-principle settlement.

This leaves ANZ and PPB as the Oswals sole remaining opponents.

Crucial to any settlement would be the ANZ’s counterclaim that the Oswals misappropriated $150m from Burrup, spending the money on luxury cars, jets, Radhika Oswal’s vegetarian restaurant chain Otarian and the couple’s still-unfinished Perth mansion, dubbed “Taj on Swan”.