Qatari Diar Abandoned Chelsea Deal, CPC Says at Trial (Update2) - BusinessWeek

Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Co., a unit of the emirate’s sovereign-wealth fund, should pay as much as 81 million pounds ($117 million) for abandoning a deal to build luxury apartments at London’s Chelsea Barracks, U.K. developer CPC Group Ltd. said at a trial today.

Qatari had no reason to back out of the project and is now refusing to pay so-called deferred compensation it owes after buying CPC’s share of the development, lawyer Anthony Stephen Grabiner said in opening arguments at a London trial over the contract dispute.

Qatari’s employees made personal allegations against real- estate entrepreneur Christian Candy, who controls CPC, in a “desperate throw of the dice to divert attention from its own actions,” Grabiner said.