The Centre plans to engage law firms to represent the country in arbitrations and disputes under Bilateral Investment Treaties and investment chapters of trade pacts.
Accordingly, the Finance Ministry has invited applications from national and international law firms.
“BITs also contain a provision for settling disputes between an investor and the host government (Investor State Dispute Settlement mechanism) as well as between the two governments,” it said.
Listing the scope of work for national law firms, the Ministry said that they would be expected to assess and advise the government on legal issues arising out of Indian BITs as well as work with the Office of the Attorney General of India and Solicitor General of India on any of these issues.
International law firms would be expected to “represent the Government of India at all international arbitrations including the International Centre on Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) or the UNCITRAL rules under Indian BITs,” it said.
Both national and international firms would also be expected to ensure timely compliance to all investment related issues.
The deadline for submitting bids is February 19 and the formal appointments are likely by March or April.
India at present has 83 Bilateral Investment Promotion Agreements (BIPAs) of which 73 are enforced.
In the past a number of multinational companies including Cairn Energy, Nokia and Vodafone have taken India for arbitration over tax claims while many telecom firms also sent notices to the government for breach of bilateral pacts after their 2G licences were taken away following a Supreme Court ruling.