Energy giant Eni is pushing to throw a veil of secrecy over its legal tussle with the Northern Territory government, as the pair bicker over who should foot the bill for the ongoing gas supply stoush.
Government utility Power and Water Corporation hit the multinational’s Perth subsidiary with legal action over allegations it breached their $5 billion gas deal after encountering issues at the Blacktip field off the Western Australian coast.
PWC went to court after multiple attempts to get its hands on the supplier’s records failed.
At Eni’s request, Supreme Court Justice Jeremy Allanson put the matter on ice and sent the pair off for private peace talks.
But not before the supply woes were laid bare in a public hearing and details were elicited from the government’s Gas Task Force chair Alister Trier during a cross-examination.
The matter wound up back before the court this morning, with Eni lobbying for a blanket confidentiality order to have details of the dispute scrubbed from the public record.
In justifying the move, Eni’s lawyers said the commercially sensitive matters should never have been detailed in open court because the contract required them to go to arbitration behind closed doors.
Power and Water Corporation’s lawyer Leon Firios told the court the government did not support or oppose the orders, but was of the view the horse had bolted, with the details having been covered in open court and published in the media.
As well as seeking a confidentiality order, Eni pushed for PWC to cover its legal bill; which the court was told was already in the order of $34,000.
In the submission, Eni’s lawyers told the court PWC should have known its case had no prospect of success and that the lawsuit constituted a breach of their arbitration agreement.
But Mr Firios argued the case was far from over and that any award of costs should wait until the arbitration is complete.
“There is likely to be vindication at the end,” he told the court.
“The dispute still has a lot of life left in it.”
Justice Allanson has reserved his decision, with access to the court file temporarily restricted.
08 Aug 2024
