Resolution near in Oswal case

Norway chemical firm Yara and US energy group Apache are close to settling legal scraps with Pankaj and Radhika Oswal.

Norwegian chemical company Yara and US energy group Apache are close to settling legal stoushes with Indian business couple Pankaj and Radhika Oswal, potentially enabling them to withdraw from a mammoth lawsuit between the pair and ANZ.

Yara and Apache are fighting the Oswals in lawsuits being heard at the same time as a claim of up to $2.5bn made by the couple against ANZ and a counterclaim by the bank that the pair misappropriated about $150m.

The lawsuit, revolving around the bank’s seizure and sale of the Oswal’s 65 per cent stake in Burrup Fertilisers, has been running in the Victorian Supreme Court for seven weeks.

Yara, which was the owner of the remaining 35 per cent of Burrup, and Apache, which supplied gas to the plant, ended up buying the Oswals’ share of the plant after it was seized by ANZ in 2010.

Hearings broke following opening arguments for two days of mediation but resumed yesterday morning.

“With the consent of the Yara parties, if I can call them that, and also with Apache, I can indicate that on both those fronts — I’m trying to use as neutral terminology as I can — we believe that there’s some prospect of resolution on those fronts,” counsel for Pankaj Oswal, Tony Bannon, SC, told the court.

“We think there’s cautious optimism that that may resolve things,” counsel for Apache, Stewart Anderson, QC, said.

However, the fight between ANZ and the couple continues. The court will next week start dealing with evidence in ANZ’s claim that $150m was misappropriated from Burrup and spent on cars, a boat, an unfinished mansion in Perth and Ms Oswal’s Otarian chain of vegetarian restaurants.