Car Parks Update - February 2019
As you will be aware – at the end of 2018 the criminal case in the UAE resulted in the accused being found guilty by the office of Public Prosecutions and passed to the Judge and Dubai Court to deal with the processing and awards. There was a court hearing last week that would normally be to conclude matters of the criminal case – however, our legal team called for an expert witness to be able to open all companies with which the accused is connected, to try and increase the size of the pot of assets and to bring other people into the actions whose personal assets could be targeted by the court.
We are advised that the route chosen by our legal team means that as well as the pool of assets potentially being increased, the accused will be restricted from challenging the judge’s decision by using appeals or referring the case to any higher level court.
Our team was successful in this and, as a result, whilst the conclusion of this case in this court may take a few weeks longer, we are advised that it will speed up the final conclusion and accelerate any payments being made.
In addition (and, we suspect, as result of the court action in the UAE) the accused applied for an emergency court hearing in the UK to try to take back control of the assets located in the UK that are being managed by UK administrators. Best’s view is that this was an action driven by the accused having now effectively lost the main case in the UAE to try to take control of any assets that he can, potentially to try and put them beyond the reach of the investors. This was aggressively contested at short notice by the administrators’ legal team and they have managed to delay any further UK actions until a date after the UAE actions are expected to conclude.
Best are very aware that what the investors really care about is conclusion of the case and disbursement of funds. It has been a very long legal route including both criminal and civil actions in multiple jurisdictions and whilst we have not yet reached conclusion, there is an increasing feeling of confidence over when and where a conclusion will be reached.