They are Abu Dhabi’s best known royal figures. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (MBZ) is the de facto man in charge of oil rich Abu Dhabi and his younger brother Sheikh Mansour is the boss of IPIC and famed owner of Manchester City Football Club.
Together they also control the Mubadala sovereign wealth fund with assets worth around a hundred billion US dollars and both sit on the board of the even more massive Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA). They are the most powerful half brothers of the present President of the Emirates and ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Both brothers have, of course, also been closely caught up in the 1MDB scandal. US$6.5 billion was raised by the Malaysian fund largely thanks to a bogus guarantee organised through a subsidiary of IPIC, Aabar, which became a vehicle for stealing at least half the money.
In the past fortnight the bank Goldman Sachs has agreed to pay a multi-billion dollar fine in recognition of its crooked role and ex-Prime Minister Najib Razak has been found guilty of the first 7 of 42 charges he personally faces in the Malaysian Courts.
Meanwhile, Sheikh Mansour’s right hand man at Aabar/IPIC, Khadem Al Qubaisi, has been doing jail time in Abu Dhabi ever since Sarawak Report first exposed his role as the vehicle for kickbacks amounting to over half a billion dollars, as a reward for facilitating the thefts through a web of bogus off-shore Aabar subsidiaries and the Aabar/IPIC owned Falcon Bank.
Seemingly, Mansour himself had failed to notice that tens of millions from that stash went into the servicing of his super-yacht and was also invested into projects such as Las Vegas’s largest nightclub venture Hakkasan (subsequently absorbed back into Aabar and now largely divested of its assets).
Likewise, Mansour’s older, even more powerful brother, Crown Prince Mohammed, was exposed in a published telephone recording agreeing to help Najib cover-up the scandal. Subsequent to that call, Aabar/IPIC entered into a ‘fraudulent’ Consent Order whereby Malaysia coughed up huge repayments and interest to the tune of US$6 billion to the Abu Dhabi fund in return for facilitating Najib’s secret bailout.
Malaysia still has a case against IPIC drifting in the courts in London, although signs are that the new backdoor coup government will now return to covering up the misdemeanours and reach a settlement.
Revealing Court Case
However, whilst Abu Dhabi has fought for months to prevent the 1MDB case moving into open court (given the blushes it might provoke in such high places) the Emirate has shown itself far less wary of embarking on a separate dispute in London’s High Court, which now threatens to become an even more embarrassing affair.
Indeed, if the evidence emerging from the case is confirmed as true, it sheds a far from flattering light on these same two top players in the ruling Al Nahyan family, one of the world’s wealthiest clans.
The defendants, Lancer Property Asset Management, are a small British agency that might have appeared an easy target for Abu Dhabi royal litigants with their unlimited cash.
However, for 17 years Lancer was on the inside of many property investment deals in London and they have possibly surprisingly stood their ground. As a result, some deeply embarrassing allegations have started tumbling into open court, which appear to be backed by compelling evidence that the Emirati litigants seem to have found hard to readily rebut.
Lancer, according to the evidence, was hired by Abu Dhabi’s present ruler, President Khalifa bin Zayed of the Emirates, to help build up his private property portfolio in London. Soon, purchases curated by the agency since 1990 developed into a staggering collection of some of the poshest pads in town.
From the evidence, which has started to be breathlessly reported in the UK and global tabloid press (using words like ‘profligacy‘ and ‘reckless extravagance‘) it would seem that an investment of some £2 billion over the years has delivered scores of properties now worth a massive £5 billion (RM25 billion) in London alone.
The court filings refer also to numerous other residences acquired by the wealthy ruler, including a stately home near the Queen in Windsor, where Sheikh Khalifa ordered for imported Evian water to spout from every fountain.
He has yet to spend even one night at Ascot or at another of his many residences, a vast restored estate near Madrid, where an entire staff of 15 have remained employed but with not a single guest for them to serve for 17 years.
Lancer stoutly deny the claims, saying their charges were agreed and that the Sheikh knew about the commissions to his own official, having signed a document that specifically sanctioned the arrangement.
The company furthermore has expressed bafflement at the sudden change of heart of their client, which they claim can be dated to 2014 after which they had found it increasingly difficult to communicate with Khalifa’s Abu Dhabi office and then found themselves first sacked then sued.
Sheikh Khalifa suffered a stroke in 2014 and has been rarely seen in public since. Therefore, Lancer has questioned who is actually suing them, Sheikh Khalifa or entities whom they believe have taken over his affairs ?
The plaintiffs lawyers have argued this is irrelevant, yet the matter goes to the heart of off-shore secrecy and what it might conceal. It also raises sensational concerns about what might going on in the private office of the now reclusive ruler of Abu Dhabi and who is actually in charge of the oil rich Kingdom ?
The formal litigants in this case are some 24 British Virgin Island companies set up to ‘own’ the various chunks of London property within the Sheikh’s portfolio. The reason for this device was to preserve his desire for anonymity and also, one would assume, to save the fabulously wealthy foreigner some £700 million in capital gains that he would otherwise have owed to the British revenue (money British residents/companies would be forced to pay).
However, after much apparent wrangling, Sarawak Report has established that the judge has opined that Khalifa’s status as the Ultimate Beneficial Owner (UBO) of all these off-shore companies does indeed lie at the heart of the case and therefore it must be proven that the decision to sue Lancer was made by him.
Incapacitated!
This has given rise to information put before the court that should send shock waves through Abu Dhabi and indeed the world, including Malaysia which has had its own dose of the ‘governing style’ of the movers and shakers in Abu Dhabi.
The defendants, Lancer, have dramatically informed the court that during the course of being sued by the Royal claimant they had started to be made aware that since suffering his stroke in 2014, Sheikh Khalifa, whom they previously found to be an engaged client who signed off on the deals authorising the off-shore companies, their lawyers and agents, is no longer capable of his own decisions.
This is despite the fact that Khalifa, who has rarely been seen in public since the stroke, was nonetheless voted in for another five years as the President of the Emirates in November of last year. According to Lancer:
“Sheikh Khalifa is reported to have suffered a stroke in January 2014, which the Defendants believe to be gravely debilitating of his mental faculties and the Defendants believe that this litigation results from ensuing competition amongst family members for control of his assets …. Sheikh Khalifa and/or the General Secretariat of the Executive Council (amongst others) have since January 2014 issued documents which purport to (but, given his incapacity, cannot in fact) be approved and/or signed by Sheikh Khalifa …” [Defence document Berkley Square Holdings & 23 Others – vs – Lancer Property Asset Management Limited – underline added]
Whilst it has been recognised in Abu Dhabi that Sheikh Khalifa has been much retired since his illness and almost never appears in public, the suggestion that he might be mentally incapacitated and unable to make key decisions as the ruler of Abu Dhabi and President of the Emirates will come as shocking information.
Enquiries by Sarawak Report indicate that the full extent of the much loved ruler’s decline has been kept a closely guarded secret amongst the leading inner circle of the Al Nahyan family, who have chosen to pretend instead that the oldest brother remains a functioning leader of his country – and Chairman of the world’s third largest sovereign wealth fund.
Certainly, recent online videos and photographs of the ruler have been kept to a bare minimum and appear to potentially reveal the devastating effects of a major brain haemorrhage and stroke that the 71 year old is believed to have suffered back in 2014.
A favoured photograph of the ruler being kissed by the Crown Prince might seem to have caught a joyful moment, but the hand is also limp. And the ruler’s jaw appears to remain unclosed in most situations.
It is the Crown Prince who is the ‘Deputy’ for Khalifa at the half trillion dollar ADIA fund managed on behalf of the people of Abu Dhabi. He is also already regarded as the de facto but not official ruler and as the most powerful player in the state.
....
Commentaire