Retired British judge Bernard Rix to be RIL’s arbitrator in KG case

NEW DELHI: Reliance Industries (RIL) has nominated retired British judge Bernard Rix as its arbitrator, days after SP Bharucha, a former chief justice of India, recused himself from the case which the company had filed against the government’s decision to penalise it for the steep fall in gas production from the KG-D6 block.

A Reliance spokesperson confirmed that “an arbitrator has been nominated” but declined to give any detail. According to industry sources, Rix is a legal luminary who has specialised in international commercial disputes and has appeared in the courts of Singapore and Hong Kong.

Industry sources said the company is keen to speed up the arbitration, which has faced many hurdles over the appointment of arbitrators. The government had challenged the appointment of Bharucha in the arbitration alleging the retired judge had not made full disclosure about his prior association with RIL.

The three-year-old arbitration case has proceeded very slowly. At first, RIL had to approach the Supreme Court to ask the government to appoint its arbitrator.

This resulted in the government appointing retired Chief Justice VN Khare as its arbitrator. The next hurdle was a dispute between the two sides over the appointment of the presiding arbitrator.

The matter again went to the apex court, which appointed and then rescinded the appointment of an Australian jurist after it emerged that he headed a list of possible arbitrators submitted by RIL. Later, the court appointed another Australian judge, who rejected the offer after the government questioned his flip-flops in taking a decision.

Finally, the court appointed Michael Kirby of Australia as presiding arbitrator.