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thetimes.co.uk/tenA luxury penthouse flat on the edge
of Regent’s Park in London is at the
centre of a $131 million legal battle
between Barclays and the tycoon
behind two FTSE 350 companies that
collapsed amid a fraud scandal.
The property off Prince Albert
Road is among assets belonging to
Bavaguthu Raghuram Shetty, the
founder of NMC Health and Finablr,
over which the bank has been
granted a worldwide freezing and
asset disclosure order.
A judgment in the High Court has
revealed that the order was granted
in the Dubai International Financial
Centre Courts in September 2020. It
was part of a lawsuit won by Barclays
in Dubai last spring against Shetty, 79,
in a dispute over a personal guarantee
that he allegedly gave on debts at part
of Finablr, the foreign exchange
group.
Barclays, which is also a large
creditor of NMC Health, the former
FTSE 100 private healthcare group,
secured another legal victory last
week when the High Court ruled that
the $131 million claim could be en-
forced in Britain, allowing the bank to
pursue Shetty for the debt in the
country.
The ruling stemmed from a
judgment in the Dubai court that
found “absolutely no evidence” to
support any “wild speculation” that
Barclays had “connived with fraud-
sters within [UAE Exchange, part of
Finablr] in order to perpetrate a fraud
on that company”.
Last week’s 34-page High Court
judgment has given insight into
attempts by international creditors,
including Barclays, to pursue debts
allegedly owed by Shetty after the
sudden fall of his business empire.
The document reveals how the In-
dian-born businessman, whose for-
tune was estimated at $3.2 billion by
Forbes in 2019, unsuccessfully sought
to adjourn the High Court case until
after April, claiming that he could not
afford legal counsel to represent him
as he was the subject of numerous
freezing orders, including at least
three in India, and was facing
“restrained financial circumstances”.
Shetty created a global group with
interests spanning pharmaceuticals
to tea and turned NMC, which waslisted on the London Stock Exchange
in 2012 and owned Aspen Healthcare
in the UK, into the biggest private
healthcare provider in the United
Arab Emirates.
NMC began to implode in late 2019
when Muddy Waters, a San Fran-
cisco-based short-seller, raised
concerns about its accounting and
governance. The scandal spread to
Finablr, which had been listed in
London in May that year. NMC’s
collapse, which wiped out share-
holders, has led to legal investiga-
tions, including by the Serious Fraud
Office, and concerns over the role of
City advisory firms and EY, the
auditor, which faces large claims.
The High Court judgment reveals
that last month Shetty sought per-
mission from Barclays to sell the
Regent’s Park flat “to pay various
legal costs”.
Simmons & Simmons, the law firm
representing Barclays, responded the
next day, refusing an adjourn-
ment of the case and the
sale, “noting that
Shetty was seeking
consent to the sale
in order to pursue
and defend other
legal proceedings
around the world
when the primary
purpose of the
present proceed-
ings was to realise the
value of [the flat] in
order to satisfy a small
part of Shetty’s debt to Bar-
clays”.
The leasehold was acquired for
almost £4 million in 2014 by Multi
Skies Ltd, a company incorporated in
the British Virgin Islands and with an
address in the UAE, according to UK
Land Registry filings.
Shetty’s attempt to sell the flat
raised concern that his “only known
English asset might be dissipated”.
“If the flat were sold then Barclays’
claim here would become meaning-
less,” Simmons & Simmons said in a
witness statement on December 13,
opposing Shetty’s adjournment
request. The flat has also been subject
to an order issued by the High Ccourt
in favour of Abu Dhabi CommercialBank since December 2020, accord-
ing to the Land Registry document.
The bank, which is majority-owned
by the Abu Dhabi government, suc-
ceeded in appointing Alvarez & Mar-
sal as administrator of NMC in April
2020.
Unsecured creditors, including Bar-
clays, are owed an estimated $7.2 bil-
lion and are expected to receive
$1.1 billion, Alvarez & Marsal has esti-
mated. Other British bank creditors
included HSBC and Standard Char-
tered, although both are understood
to have sold the debt. Barclays was
owed $146.6 million, according to
claims in 2020, but is thought to have
offloaded part of the debt.
Shetty said in his witness state-
ment to his adjournment application,
filed on December 9, that he nor-
mally lived in the UAE, but when he
tried to return there in November
2020 he was stopped by Indian bor-
der officials. He is stranded in Manga-
lore, a port city in the Indian
state of Karnataka.
Shetty has been able
to fund other inter-
national litigation,
including a lawsuit
in New York
against EY, Bank
of Baroda, Credit
Europe Bank and
“various others as
co-conspirators in
an alleged fraud
alongside former
executives of NMC
Health”, in which he claims
about $7 billion.
He claimed in the High Court case
that he was “now only represented in
proceedings where my lawyers are
paid by insurers, or whether they
agree to extend credit to me, or if they
are paid by my well-wishers where
such expenses are comparatively
low”.
Last week Mr Justice Henshaw, the
High Court judge, dismissed Shetty’s
adjournment application as a “delib-
erate last-minute tactic designed to
seek to delay the proceedings”.
“Obvious deficiencies” in Shetty’s
evidence included the “failure to ex-
plain how he claims to be unable to
fund a defence to the present applica-
tion, in circumstances where he has
been able to defend or pursue other
major litigation”.Flat delays Barclays’
race to claim $131m
from NMC founder
Alex Ralphn adjourn
nd the
hat
nge
in
small
t to Bar-lore, a port c
state of K
She
to fu
nat
in
in
a
o
E
“v
co-
an
along
executiv
HHHHealth”, in
abbout $ 7 billion.Bavaguthu Raghuram Shetty faces a
claim from Barclays for $131 millionDeanna Oppenheimer will
become the first chairwoman
of InterContinental Hotels
Group’s after being chosen to
replace Patrick Cescau when he
retires at the end of August.
The former head of retail
banking at Barclays will
join the board of the Holi-
day Inn and Crowne Plaza
operator on June 1 as a non-
executive director and
chairwoman-designate.
She is already non-execu-Hotels group names first chairwoman
tive chairwoman of Hargreaves
Lansdown, the financial ser-
vices group she joined in 2018,
which means she will chair
two FTSE 100 companies.
Chairing two of the index’s
constituents is no longer a
breach of corporate gov-
ernance rules.
She also sits on the
board of Thomson
Reuters, havingpreviously been a non-executive di-
rector of Whitbread and senior inde-
pendent director of Tesco. She also
served on the board of Tesco Bank.
Oppenheimer, 63, and Cescau, 73,
who collected fees of £384,000 last
year, were on the Tesco board
together between 2012 and 2015, a
period that coincided with the super-
market’s accounting scandal.
During her time at Barclays she
rose to UK chief operating officer and
later vice-chairwoman of global
retail banking. Cescau, 73, who has
been chairman of IHG since 2013, is a
former chief executive of Unilever.Oppenheimer was
head of Barclays
retail bankiingDominic Walsh