UAE’s Dana Gas gets injunction from English court blocking claims on $700m sukuk

Dana Gas said on Sunday it had obtained an injunction from the English High Court of Justice in London restraining holders of its $700 million of sukuk from taking any hostile action against the company in relation to the Islamic bonds.

Last week, the company obtained similar injunctions from the Sharjah Federal Court of First Instance in the United Arab Emirates and from the Commercial Division of the High Court of Justice in the British Virgin Islands.

The Abu Dhabi-listed energy company announced last week that its outstanding sukuk were not sharia-compliant and were therefore unlawful and unenforceable in the UAE.

The company said it would therefore halt coupon payments on the sukuk, and proposed to its creditors exchanging the sukuk for new Islamic bonds with lower profit distributions.

A committee of sukuk holders said last week that the company’s decision to halt payments was a “repudiation” of the English law under which the instruments were issued.

Read: Dana Gas’s sukuk holders say firm’s offer “repudiation” of English law