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'Enron not seeking US sanctions against India'

US energy giant Enron Corp said on Thursday it had not approached the US government with a view to obtaining sanctions against India in its dispute over the $2.9 billion Dabhol power plant project.

"We have not pursued requests for any kind of government sanctions," said Enron spokesman John Ambler.

Ambler was commenting on a report in the online edition of the Financial Times that said Enron has threatened India with new US sanctions unless the company and its partners get back the full $1 billion in costs they incurred in building the plant.

"There are US laws that could prevent the US government from providing any aid or assistance or other things to India going forward if, in fact, they expropriate property of US companies," Enron chairman and chief executive officer Ken Lay told the newspaper in an interview.

Enron said earlier this month that it would be willing to sell its majority stake in Dabhol Power Co for $1 billion, which it said represented the costs that it and partners General Electric Co and Bechtel Group Inc had incurred.

"If they try to squeeze us down to something less than cost then it basically becomes an expropriation by the Indian government," Lay told the Financial Times.

Another Enron spokesman, Mark Palmer, said the company had not made any type of request for help in the dispute from the US government, nor filed a formal complaint.

"We may have briefed somebody but we have not asked for any help...Nothing has been expropriated," he said.

Palmer said Lay has not discussed the Dabhol dispute with President George W Bush. Lay has supported Bush since his days as Texas governor and has maintained close ties with him since he has been in the White House.

Palmer said the comments attributed to Lay in the Financial Times were accurate but were made only after Lay explained at length that he believed Indian authorities had every reason to resolve the dispute to the satisfaction of both sides.

Dabhol Power Co in Maharashtra has been locked in a long and bitter dispute with its sole customer, a state-owned utility, over high tariffs and payment defaults.

In a visit to India last month Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian affairs Christina Rocca said efforts were under way to scrap economic sanctions Washington imposed on India in 1998 in protest at India's nuclear tests, but she took a swipe at the country's investment climate.

She took India to task for protectionist trade policies, its investment climate and its failure to provide an effective system for the protection of intellectual property.

She said the problems clouding India's investment climate could be summed up with a five-letter word, "Enron". It would be difficult for international investors to view India favorably until the Dabhol dispute was resolved, she said.

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