TRG Saga: US Court Hands Victory to Zia Chishti

July 2, 2026 (MLN): TRG Pakistan Limited's (PSX: TRG) former CEO Zia Chishti has won the latest round in his protracted legal battle with the company, after the US District Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) denied a motion by The Resource Group International Limited (TRGI) and its affiliates to enjoin litigation he has pursued in Pakistan.

In an Order dated July 1, 2026, Judge Louis L. Stanton ruled that Resource Group, comprising TRGI, Mohammed Khaishgi, Hasnain Aslam and TRG Pakistan Limited (TRG-P), collectively "Resource Group", did not meet the threshold legal requirements for an anti-suit injunction against Chishti's Pakistan lawsuits and denied the motion in full.

Background of the dispute

This ruling was in response to TRG Pakistan’s present Chairman Mohammed Khaishgi and present CEO Hasnain Aslam seeking to halt Chishti from pursuing a contempt petition in the Supreme Court of Pakistan by asserting in the U.S. court that the contempt petition was barred under Zia Chishti’s release agreement.

Zia Chishti brought the contempt petition to enforce the May 11, 2026 orders of the Supreme Court of Pakistan in CPLA 872-K of 2025, CPLA 873-K of 2025, and CPLA 2543 of 2025. 

In these orders the Supreme Court upheld the decision of the Sindh High Court in JCM 12 of 2025, which required TRG Pakistan to immediately hold board elections that became overdue in January 2025, and required TRG Pakistan’s affiliate Greentree to return to TRG Pakistan shares it had acquired in TRG Pakistan with TRG Pakistan’s own funds. 

The Sindh High Court had ruled that this conduct was fraudulent and done collusively between TRG Pakistan and its affiliates TRG International and Greentree, and that it was performed under the direction of the board of TRG Pakistan.

On June 4, 2026, Zia Chishti filed a criminal contempt petition in Pakistan seeking to enforce that order. Days later, on June 9, Resource Group asked the SDNY to enjoin both the JCM 12 petition and the contempt proceeding, arguing they were based on "Released Claims" under a Release Agreement Chishti signed on January 10, 2022, the same agreement the court had earlier found barred a broad set of claims dating from "the beginning of time" through that date, when Chishti received over $60 million from TRG International in a redemption transaction.

The SDNY issued a temporary restraining order on June 10 and directed supplemental briefing before ruling on the merits.

As TRG-P disclosed to the PSX on June 12, that restraining order, which barred Chishti from pursuing litigation in any forum based on the Released Claims, was explicitly time-bound, set to remain in effect only until July 1, 2026.

While the SDNY has issued its July 1, 2026 Order, TRG Pakistan has yet to make any corresponding disclosure to the Pakistan Stock Exchange.

Court's reasoning

Applying the two-part test from China Trade & Development Corp. v. M.V. Choong Yong, the court found Resource Group cleared the first threshold, identity of parties, since Greentree, though not a party before the SDNY, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of TRG-I and both suits allege it acted in concert with TRG-I in the takeover attempt.

However, the court found Resource Group could not clear the second threshold, holding that its earlier May 12, 2026 ruling was not dispositive of the Pakistan claims.

 The board-election delay claim was never addressed in the May 12 Order, and the tender-offer claim fared no better: the court noted the tender offer itself, initially filed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange on December 24, 2024 and formally disclosed on January 16, 2025, was never disclosed in Zia Chishti's arbitration demand before the SDNY.

Resource Group had in fact represented to the court that no such tender offer or disclosure had been made.

 As a result, the SDNY never reviewed the tender offer documents and its May 12 ruling did not address whether claims arising from it were released.

Critically, the court held that "Greentree's TRG-P share acquisition occurred after Chishti signed the Release Agreement, so claims based on this conduct are not released", directly undercutting Resource Group's position that the dispute stemmed from a released dividend-diversion claim.

 The court found this characterization "inconsistent" with both the JCM 12 complaint and the Sindh High Court's ruling, noting the tender offer was Chishti's primary objective in that suit, with the dividend issue raised only as context.

The contempt petition was found to raise no claims beyond those in JCM 12 and was therefore denied on the same grounds.

Court's credibility remarks

In a pointed section of the order, the court said it was led "to suspect that the Pakistan courts are sharing the extra burdens imposed on a court by loose, inaccurate, or imaginary statements made by the litigants," adding that its own rulings "are distorted in their presentation in Pakistan."

The court also noted Resource Group had waited over a year, while aware that claims tied to Greentree's share purchase were not released, before filing what it termed an "emergency motion."

Citing precedent that anti-suit injunctions should be "used sparingly" and reserved for cases where foreign litigation "entirely duplicates domestic litigation," the court concluded that standard was not met here.

Conclusion of the order

The court closed its ruling with the following:

"Resource Group's motion for an anti-suit injunction is denied. Dkt. No. 218. This Order also disposes of TRG-P's letters in support of TRG-I's motion. Dkt. Nos. 220, 227. So Ordered."

The ruling clears the way for Zia Chishti's Sindh High Court proceedings, including the board-election order and the related contempt petition, to continue, dealing a setback to Resource Group's efforts to consolidate the dispute within the SDNY.

 The order also formally disposes of related TRG-P letters filed in support of TRG-I's motion.

This follows a string of earlier SDNY rulings this year that had gone in TRGI's favour, including a May 12 ruling that broadly released pre-2022 claims, a June 10 restraining order, and an $9.1 million turnover order issued June 18 against Chishti personally over fraudulent share pledges and asset transfers to his spouse.

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