Enron chairman and chief executive Kenneth Lay today wrote to the Indian prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, saying that he has not asked the US government to consider imposing sanctions on India.
He also denied that he has called the Dabhol power plant expropriated which would entitle the Bush administration to put sanctions against India.
Lay's letter, a copy of which is available with Business Standard, comes on the wake of a report published in The Financial Times in which he was reported to have threatened India with new US sanctions unless the company and its partners got back the full $1 billion dollars in costs incurred in building the project in Maharashtra.
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Explaining his position to Vajpayee, Lay has said in the letter that he was only trying to explain to The Financial Times the several possible options available including how one might get to expropriation and about the US laws in place to protect its businesses. "However, this is far from suggesting that we have decided to pursue these mechanisms," the letter says.
According to the letter, Enron's preferred approach to the Dabhol impasse continues to resolve the issue amicably by selling its stake to the government and financial institutions. "Without agreement on that, we have little choice but to follow the termination procedures jointly agreed to under the power purchase agreement," Lay says in the letter.
Lay marked a copy each of the letter to finance minister Yashwant Sinha and power minister Suresh Prabhu.