A blistering cost

It is like a settlement at gunpoint — an unusual requirement from the apex court to pre-sanctify precisely a commercial deal between a sovereign under distress and a top global mining firm with overwhelming powers of international jurisdictions. Subject to the clearance by the country’s top court, the provincial assemblies will pass special resolutions, and the parliament, through a joint sitting of both houses, will provide constitutional cover to a new binding document — Foreign Investment (Promotion and Protection) Act (FIPPA), 2022. All this will set a new precedent in the country’s investment, trade and business agreements with far-reaching future consequences. It may be recalled that an earlier similar attempt for settlement of a commercial dispute, although not under any constitutional jurisdiction, in the matter of K-Electric had been declined by the Supreme Court of Pakistan.