Jadestone Takes Inpex to Court over Vietnamese Deal

Southeast Asia-focused producer Jadestone Energy has launched arbitration proceedings against Teikoku Oil, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Japan's Inpex, over the purchase of a stake in a Vietnamese block.

Jadestone signed a definitive sale and purchase agreement (SPA) with Teikoku in August 2016 to acquire a 30% stake in the block 05-1 production-sharing contract for $14.3mn, it said. But Teikoku announced in February 2018 that it was terminating the deal – which Jadestone did not accept. Negotiations continued between the pair in 2018 and 2019, but Jadestone has now initiated arbitration proceedings in Singapore.

"Prior to the purported termination, the parties had worked together and made very substantial progress toward closing the deal, a process which included Inpex requesting that the deal not be terminated even after the long stop date had passed, and with the objective of obtaining Petrovietnam's waiver of their pre-emptive rights, which was then achieved in early February 2018," Jadestone CEO Paul Blakeley said. "While commencing arbitration is never an easy decision, we have exhausted all avenues to come to an amicable conclusion, and now feel Inpex's continued unwillingness to complete the SPA constitutes a material breach of their obligations, to the detriment of potential value for Jadestone shareholders."