Petronet Lng Ltd vs Indian Petro Group And Another on 13 April, 2009 De France, a French national gas company, through its investment subsidiary GDF International, holds a minority stake of 10% equity in the plaintiff as a strategic partner, Asian Development Bank holds 5.2% equity stake as an investor and 34.8% of the equity in the plaintiff is held by the general public. 3. The plaintiff is not aware of the exact legal status of defendant No.1. The particulars of defendant No.1 is based on the information provided in the website of defendant No.1, www.indianpetro.com. Defendant No.1 claims to be India's largest news and informal market intelligence provider on Indian Oil and Gas, power and Fertilizer sectors. It also claims to have long standing relationships and networking arrangements to provide the most comprehensive, macro and micro reports of the respective industries. The defendant No.1 owns and operates at least three websites, viz., www.indianpetro.com, www.energylineindia.com and www.indianfertilizer.com. Defendant No.2 is the Executive Editor of defendant No.1 and has registered the website www.indianpetro.com; the registration is for a period from 13.11.2001 to 13.11.2011. 4. The defendants have been publishing several news items/articles relating to the plaintiff in the suit website from time to time since 2003, and, barring a few items/articles published in June 2005, April and May 2006 they only published such information which was already in the public domain or which never affected its (the plaintiff's) interests in any manner. The plaintiff has no objection to the publication of news items or articles involving it, which are already in the public domain. It is, however, averred that unauthorized publishing of sensitive information shared between the plaintiff and international LNG sellers, present and/or prospective, or publishing of half-baked or misleading reports about the plaintiff or its CS(OS) No.1102/2006 Page 2 commercial transactions, as it is bound to have serious repercussions on the plaintiff, cannot be permitted. This is in view of facts relating to the terms of LNG sale and purchase, particularly terms like price and quantity are negotiated separately for each transaction, if published have impact on potential agreements, which could lead to failure of negotiations. The adverse impact on publication could also be existing Sale and Purchase agreements getting breached/terminated (if there are disclosures about that agreement), the plaintiff facing claims for damages, and even on adverse impact on the plaintiff in the stock market. It is contended that any adverse impact on the plaintiff's transactions or potential transactions would have an adverse chain reaction on other stake -holders in the petroleum sector. 5. It is alleged that the defendants, despite being aware of such adverse consequences, had published confidential information relating to the plaintiff in the suit website on 02.06.2005 and 07.06.2005, the details of which are as follows : (a) On 02.06.2005, the defendants published information under following the headings: (i) "PLL appoints Baker Botts as international legal advisor", (ii) "Disagreement over routing of additional 2.5 mmtpa Ras Gas LNG through Petronet", (iii) "Petronet has to look for LNG sources other than Ras Gas and Iran to regasify additional quantities". Indian Kanoon - http://indiankanoon.org/doc/8534067/ 2