Dispute Resolution, Litigation & Arbitration
When the stakes are high, clients turn to Mandviwalla & Zafar. Dispute resolution is one of the firm’s deepest strengths. We appear daily before the trial courts, the High Courts and the Supreme Court of Pakistan, and across the specialised forums where commercial and regulatory disputes are now decided — the Banking Courts, the Competition Commission, the accountability courts, tax forums and arbitral tribunals.
Our litigators handle the full spectrum of contentious work: constitutional and writ petitions; civil and commercial suits and their execution; appeals and petitions for leave to appeal in the Supreme Court; white-collar and accountability proceedings; banking and finance litigation; competition and regulatory disputes; tax litigation; election matters; and family and inheritance disputes. We also act in domestic and international arbitration — from drafting the notice and constituting the tribunal through to challenge and enforcement.
We approach every dispute commercially. The aim is never litigation for its own sake but the outcome the client needs, whether that calls for a hard-fought trial, a decisive interim injunction, an arbitration or an early negotiated exit.
Representative matters
Across three decades the firm has acted in many of Pakistan’s landmark and highest-value disputes, for clients including:
- MCB Bank — takeover dispute.
- Royal Palm Golf & Country Club — Supreme Court proceedings against Pakistan Railways.
- Liberty Power and Southern Electric — defence of power-project agreements against cancellation by the Government, WAPDA and KESC.
- Independent Power Producers (IPPs) — defence of the power-purchase and implementation agreements.
- WAPDA — arbitration over Net Hydel Profits.
- Daewoo Corporation (Korea) and Bayindir (Turkey) — arbitrations with the National Highway Authority over the M-1 and M-2 motorways.
- Pakistan Railways — the procurement of 150 locomotives.
- Star TV — dispute with Pakistan Telecommunication.
- Pakistan Television (PTV) — proceedings against mobile-telecom operators.
- Procter & Gamble — proceedings before the Competition Commission of Pakistan.
- Tetra Pak — proceedings before the Competition Commission of Pakistan.
- Pakistan Stock Exchange — challenges to its regulations.
- Central Depository Company — defence of the challenge to the Central Depository System.
- National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) — Supreme Court proceedings on the right to education.
- Fauji Foundation — taxation of trust funds.
- Competition Commission of Pakistan — challenge to the constitution of the Commission.
- Orange Line (Metro Train) — heritage-protection proceedings before the Lahore High Court.
- Premier Insurance — high-value fire-and-terrorism coverage dispute.
- Wateen Telecom — regulatory, tax and right-of-way litigation.
- Bahria Town — Ring Road land-acquisition litigation before the Lahore High Court.
- Article 63A — Supreme Court proceedings on the disqualification of defecting members.
- Major international shipping lines — the War Risk Surcharge challenge.
- Leading commercial banks — landmark banking, guarantee and recovery litigation.
- Honda Atlas Cars (Pakistan) — customs litigation challenging a Rs. 236 million liability assessed on royalty payments.
- Shandong Yongtai Paper Mills (Roshan Paper) — companies-jurisdiction proceedings before the Lahore High Court.
- TUV Austria Bureau of Inspection & Certification (Pvt.) Ltd — commercial recovery litigation, including in respect of the Multan Metro and Orange Line projects, and related lease and contract matters.
- Private medical colleges — represented the colleges before the Supreme Court in regulatory and fee proceedings.
- Banking litigation — MCB Banking Court, Habib Bank (CPLA, pension and recovery), UBL v. Rehmat Wazir Textile Mills, the Bank of Punjab and BNP.
- Tax litigation — the Finance Act 2017 case, Wateen sales-tax references, Master Tiles (GIDC) and ethanol and sugar-mills duty matters.
- Election Commission of Pakistan / NADRA — secured Supreme Court directions on the constitution of the ECP and the correction of electoral rolls.
- Indus Sugar Mills — Circular 29 loan-settlement proceedings before the Supreme Court.
- PIA (Karachi crash) — matters arising from the Karachi air crash.
- M. Islam Medical & Dental College / College at the Hills — recognition and regulatory litigation.
- Mian Tariq Mahmood and Yasir Islam — election and ECP disputes.
