Two weeks ago, the Gujarat High Court barred Hindustan Oil Exploration Company (HOEC), its directors, employees, officers, agents from assigning, selling and transferring all the movable and immovable assets owned by HOEC including the HOEC House. This was with regard to a case pertaining to an international arbitration where the arbitration panel has asked HOEC and ONGC to pay the dues to Hardy Oil - the operator of offshore oil field PY-3 in Tamil Nadu.

While ONGC agreed to comply with the arbitration panel award and make the requisite payments to Hardy Oil, in case of HOEC, yesterday, the Gujarat High Court withdrew its freeze order after Hardy Oil withdrew its petition against the company.

Hardy had secured an arbitration award from the Tribunal consisting of three arbitrators. The majority decision in the award was against ONGC, HOEC and TPL in relation to the block PY-3, wherein HOEC holds 21% participating interest.

The market is happy about this. The stock, which had closed yesterday at Rs.69.10, opened today at Rs.71 and went up further to Rs.75.85. Its 20% UC for the day is at Rs.82.90.