Heritage Oil hit by a whopping £193m Tullow Oil law suit

By Rob Davies for the Daily Mail
Updated: 16:09 EDT, 18 April 2011

Tullow Oil has slapped its former partner Heritage Oil with a lawsuit, as it seeks financial redress for £193m it paid to the Ugandan authorities to settle a tax row.

The dispute hinges on a capital gains tax bill demanded by the Ugandan taxman from Heritage when it sold a 50 per cent stake in a block of oil fields in the Lake Albert basin to Tullow for £900m.

Heritage denied liability and Tullow eventually paid the £193m bill to allow it to proceed with the sale of stakes in the fields to France’s Total and China’s CNOOC.

Dispute: Tullow Oil has slapped its former partner Heritage Oil with a lawsuit, as it seeks financial redress for £193m it paid to the Ugandan authorities to settle a tax row

Tullow is now seeking reimbursement in a High Court battle dubbed ‘misguided’ by Heritage, which nonetheless saw its shares slip 18.4p to 251.6p.

In a statement, Tullow (down 30p to 1372p) said it was ‘the company’s clear duty to its shareholders to reclaim that money and shift the liability back to Heritage where it belongs’.

If Tullow is successful, Heritage will have to pay £193m to make up for the cost of the tax bill, most of which would be funded from £175m in cash held in escrow during the dispute.

But Heritage is separately seeking the return of £175m, claiming that since Tullow has paid up its funds should be returned.