Antrix v Devas: Supreme Court upholds setting aside of ICC order that directed Antrix to pay $560 million

Putting quietus to litigation that lasted almost a decade, the Supreme Court recently refused to uphold an arbitral award of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) that had directed Antrix Corporation Limited to pay damages of over US$ 560 million with interest to Devas Multimedia Private Limited (Devas Employees Fund US LLC v. Antrix Corporation Limited and ors).A Bench of Justices S Ravindra Bhat (since retired) and Aravind Kumar on October 6 refused to interfere with a Delhi High Court order in this regard."This Court is of the opinion that the impugned order does not call for interference. The special leave petition is accordingly dismissed," the order stated..The ICC had passed passed the arbitral award in question on September 14, 2015.It had directed Antrix, the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), to pay damages to Devas.However, the award was set aside by Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva of the High Court on the grounds that it suffered from patent illegalities and fraud, and was in conflict with the public policy of India.A division bench of the Delhi High Court had in March upheld the single-judge order. The High Court had, thus, dismissed the appeal filed by Devas Employees Mauritius Private Limited against the single-judge order.This led to the instant appeal by the Devas Employees Fund US LLC before the top court..Devas is a Bengaluru-based start-up owned by Mauritian and US firms. It was stated to be established by two people, one being a former employee of ISRO, with a share capital of ₹1,00,000 to pursue digital multimedia services.Antrix and Devas entered into an agreement by which the former agreed to build, operate and launch two satellites and lease spectrum capacity on those satellites to the latter. Devas had to utilise this bandwidth to provide multimedia services across India.However, the agreement was terminated by Antrix in 2011 due to changes in policy decisions. A legal battle between the parties ensued. On September 14, 2015, the ICC had rendered an award in favour of Devas..Antrix had argued that the contract from which the arbitral award arose was wholly vitiated due to acts of corruption, fraud and criminality committed by the erstwhile management of Antrix and Devas.On a petition filed by Antrix, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) and the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) had ordered the winding up of Devas on grounds of fraud. Devas challenged the NCLAT judgment before the Supreme Court, which, on January 17 last year, upheld the said judgment declaring that Devas was formed for fraudulent and unlawful purposes..Before the Supreme Court, Senior Advocate Suhail Dutt with Advocates Anuradha Dutt, Lynn Pereira, Priyanka MP, Chaitanya Kaushik, Shivangi Sud, Srishti Prakash, Arkaprava Das and B Vijayalakshmi Menon represented Devas.Additional Solicitor N Venkataraman with Advocates Ajay Bhargava, Vanita Bhargava, Arvind Ray, Chandrashekara Bharathi, Apoorva Jain, Divya Yadav, Rahul Vijayakumar, Shruti Shiv Kumar, Amritha Chandramouli and Shivshankar G, briefed by Khaitan & Co, appeared for Antrix.Chinmoy Roy was Antrix's in-house counsel.Advocates Aubert Sebastian and Angelika Awasthi, briefed by Trilegal, appeared on caveat..[Read order]