The GMR Group, which is contesting the termination of a contract to develop the Male international airport with the Maldives government, reiterated on Friday that it stood by its compensation claim of $1.4 billion.
Sources in GMR said the company is not considering any proposal for reduction in the compensation claim.
GMR’s reactions are in response to a Maldivian media report that quoted President Yameen Abdul Gayyoom as saying that his government would have to pay compensation to the Indian company “at any cost”.
“We believe that the government will have to pay compensation to GMR at any cost. We’re trying to get the sum that we have to pay lowered —we’re trying to get it reduced to a more plausible sum,” the Maldivian news portal Haveeru Online quoted President Gayyoom as saying.
In 2012, the $500 million airport development project was unilaterally scrapped by the government headed by then President Mohamed Waheed. The case had gone for arbitration at the Singapore Court of Appeal.
Under the contract signed in 2010, GMR was to modernise and operate the airport for 25 years.