Pakistan weighs arbitration to recover $800 million Etisalat withheld over 32 PTCL properties
The cabinet has asked the Attorney General's office to prepare an international case, senators were told on 3 November. The withheld sum is about a third of the 2005 price, and the stated reason is 32 properties out of 3,246.
Pakistan is preparing to take Etisalat, now called e&, to international arbitration over about $800 million it says is still owed from the 2005 sale of PTCL. Senators were told on Tuesday 3 November that the federal cabinet has asked the Attorney General's office to prepare the case.
The government sold 26 percent of Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited, with management control, to Etisalat International Pakistan for $2.59 billion and has received $1.76 billion. Payment was tied to the transfer of PTCL properties. Of 3,246 properties, 99 percent have been transferred and 32 have not. Etisalat is withholding the balance because of those 32.
The route to arbitration
A committee formed in July 2026 under the prime minister's adviser on privatisation, with members from the IT and law ministries and the Attorney General's office, recommended arbitration under the sale and purchase agreement. It wants the unpaid sum, the opportunity cost since 2008 and damages. The Attorney General is to assess how strong the case is, the chance of success and the legal consequences. If arbitration is justified, the prime minister or federal government must approve before a Notice of Intent goes to Etisalat.
The Privatisation Division told the joint meeting of the Senate standing committees on information technology and privatisation that it had sent a summary to the cabinet. The cabinet then directed the Attorney General's office, under Rule 24 of the Rules of Business, 1973, to prepare the case quickly.
Senators said they had not been given the sale agreement and argued that parliament should be told about asset sales. IT Secretary Zarrar Hasham Khan called the matter sensitive, and the meeting continued in camera. Dr Afnanullah Khan and Palwasha Khan chaired the committees.
What the numbers show
The price less the amount received is $830 million, which the ministry rounds to $800 million. That sum is held back over 32 properties, about 1 percent of the 3,246. Divided by 32, it comes to roughly $25 million for each property. That is not a believable price for a typical plot or building, so the withheld money works as a contractual lever tied to transfers, not as the value of the land.
An earlier account points the same way. In January 2016 a Senate committee was told that the government and Etisalat had agreed 33 properties would not be transferred and that their value would be deducted from the $800 million, while the two sides' valuations differed widely. The size of any deduction therefore turns on how the properties are valued. Whether that arrangement still stands is unknown, because the agreement is not public.
The sequence is also slow by design: an Attorney General assessment, approval from the prime minister or federal government, a Notice of Intent, and only then a filing. No source says a notice has been sent. The claim already reaches back 18 years to 2008, and the next step is the Attorney General's assessment of the case.
