Pakistan is getting ready to take Etisalat to international arbitration over the $800 million it has never paid for PTCL. Two Senate committees meeting together on Tuesday heard that the cabinet has told the Attorney General’s office to go ahead with that decision.
Beyond the money itself, the government wants damages and compensation for the delay, counted from 2008. Etisalat, the UAE operator, took a 26% stake and management control of PTCL in 2005. The price was $2.59 billion, of which Pakistan has received $1.76 billion. The Privatization Division says the rest was held back over land and buildings that were not signed over to the company.
Almost all of that has since happened: 3,246 PTCL properties were on the list, 99% are now transferred and 32 are not. Etisalat points to those 32 as its reason for not paying.
Talks have run on since 2015 through a string of committees with no settlement, and as late as January 2019 both governments were still saying they hoped to resolve it. The latest, set up in July 2026 by the prime minister’s privatization adviser with officials from the IT and law ministries as well as the attorney general’s office, recommended arbitration under the share purchase agreement. Before anything is filed it wants the attorney general to say how strong the case is and what risks follow.
Nothing has been filed yet. Should the attorney general find the case sound, the plan is to seek sign-off from the prime minister or federal government, and only then send Etisalat a Notice of Intent. The cabinet has already received a summary from the Privatization Division.
Senators also complained that Parliament has never been given the original sale agreement, although government officials can read it. IT Secretary Zarrar Hasham Khan said the subject was sensitive and had reporters leave the room, after which the discussion went on in private. Several lawmakers asked for closer parliamentary oversight of privatization deals.
