The ITA is applicable to said transactions.   The respondent submitted heavily on rules of statutory interpretation to determine whether the parties intended to grant an exemption. It submitted that capital gains tax was not a transfer tax. Hence it was not exempted by Article 23.5 of the EA2 PSA. However, the applicants objected to the respondent’s use of the rules of statutory interpretation as the EA2 PSA was an agreement and not a statute. The Tribunal agrees with the applicants on this point. The EA2 PSA is not a statute, it is an agreement. The rules of statutory interpretation may not be appropriate when interpreting agreements. The rules of statutory interpretation may be important when determining whether an agreement is in compliance with a statute but not the intentions of the parties or to assign meanings to words or in determining how a reasonable man would interpret  a document.   The applicants argued that in order to get a good interpretation of the Article, the intention of the parties is important. Did the parties intend Article 23.5 to include an exemption to capital gains tax? While the applicants’ witnesses testified that Article 23.5 intended to cover an exemption, we cannot say what the position of the GOU is. There was no witness from the Attorney General’s chambers. The Tribunal notes that the GOU which was a party to the PSA is not a party to the application before it.

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