Cairn Energy plans to change its name

London-listed oil and gas company Cairn Energy has revealed plans to change its company name effective from 13 December 2021, reflecting the continuity and evolution of the company.

The name will be changed from Cairn Energy to Capricorn Energy while the LSE stock ticker will remain as CNE. This follows an agreement at the time of the Cairn India IPO that the name would ultimately be changed.

“Given the recent legislative change in India and our participation in the related tax refund process, we are now putting in place the planned name change,” the company explained in a statement on Wednesday.

Namely, the Indian government was ordered last December to pay Cairn Energy $1.2 billion following an arbitration award in a tax dispute case. The tribunal ruled unanimously that India had breached its obligations to Cairn under the UK-India Bilateral Investment Treaty. As a result, Cairn was awarded damages of $1.2 billion, plus interest and costs, an amount nearly equal to Cairn’s market value of $1.3 billion at the time of the ruling.

In its latest update on the case, Cairn informed on Wednesday that it had entered into undertakings with the Government of India in order to participate in the scheme introduced by recent Indian legislation, the Taxation Laws (Amendment) Bill 2021, allowing the refund of taxes previously collected from Cairn in India. The Taxation Amendment Act nullifies the tax assessment originally levied against Cairn in January 2016 and orders the refund of INR 79bn (approximately $1.06 billionn), which was collected from Cairn in respect of that assessment. 

When it comes to the name change, Cairn said that the new name reflects continuity and evolution: the majority of Cairn’s subsidiaries have been known as Capricorn for some time.

“It is an established and respected name across our global operations, maintaining stakeholder confidence in our long-standing reputation for responsibility, relationships and respect,” Cairn concluded.

Earlier this week, Cairn completed the sale of interests in two UK offshore fields for $455 million. Through this deal, Cairn got rid of its entire 20 per cent interest in the Catcher field and 29.5 per cent interest in the Kraken field.