ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Chairman Nisar Mohammad Khan has left for the United Kingdom (UK) to complete the concluding process of M/s Agility case. The FBR has already won this case and now authorized to receive all the expenditures occurred on filing and hearing of this case. Prior to this M/s Agility withdrew its compensation case filed against the FBR. Now the FBR is going to receive handsome amount as compensation from M/s Agility.
It is necessary to mention here that in 2003, Kuwait based Agility for Public Warehousing Company was awarded a pilot contract by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to develop software for making import and export clearance a paperless process.
The company sued the FBR when it failed to secure a long-term contract from Pakistan. The case was brought to the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes Washington (ICSID). The international tribunal finally announced on 1st August 2016, that Agility wrongly accused FBR over the $650 million case and would also have to pay any costs incurred by the FBR in defending the case. The company said Pakistan fraudulently took over its software .Agility had alleged that Pakistan had infringed upon its intellectual property rights. The company said that the FBR used the company to develop a project and then took over to develop the software based on Agility’s work.
The FBR took a contradictory stand under the guidance and counsel of Barrister Farrukh Karim Qureshi of Samdani & Qureshi and argued that the company was awarded the contract but was later found that it had made fraudulent representations about its past experiences and quality of software products. Agility used political influence to get the long-term contract from FBR.
The company had allegedly also tried to use political influence to get the FBR to award a long-term contract. The case was heard by the Arbitral Tribunal in London for ten days in November 2015. However Agility informed the tribunal that it wanted to withdraw the entire $650 million case. Pakistan’s counsel said that the withdrawal would only be justified if the company agrees to pay the entire costs of Pakistan defending the case and admits that this was a malicious and baseless claim.The tribunal agreed with the Pakistani defendant’s position and has now ordered Agility to pay all the costs and expenses incurred due to its claim which was wrongly brought forward by the company against Pakistan on an international forum.
