gulfnews : Bank wins UK case against Saudi billionaire

Standard Bank won its case against Saudi billionaire Shaikh Mohammad Bin Eisa Al Jaber for the repayment of about $150 million (Dh550 million) in loans.

A London judge ordered the founder of MBI International & Partners to begin repaying the debt immediately, saying there was "no real defence at all" against the claims.

Standard Bank sued Al Jaber in London seeking repayment of $150 million in loans to companies in his MBI group. The Johannesburg-based bank says Al Jaber personally guaranteed the debt. It won a global freezing order on the his assets last year, which forced parts of his JJW Hotels & Resorts chain into administration, Al Jaber said in a court appearance on Thursday. He claims to have lost more than £1 billion (Dh5.8 billion) because of the dispute. Al Jaber, Saudi Arabia's third-richest man with interests in hotels and agribusiness, will appeal and filed a complaint regarding Standard Bank to the Financial Ombudsman service, his spokesman Neil McLeod said in an e-mailed statement. He previously filed a counter-claim at the court accusing the lender of allowing unauthorised trading from a personal account.

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Aluminium Bahrain Racketeering Case Against Alcoa Reopened - Bloomberg

A racketeering lawsuit filed by Bahrain’s state-owned aluminum producer against Alcoa Inc. (AA), the largest U.S. aluminum producer, was reopened by a U.S. judge.

Aluminium Bahrain BSC, known as Alba, sued in February 2008, claiming that New York-based Alcoa bribed senior officials in Bahrain and caused Alba to pay inflated prices for alumina, the principal raw material in aluminum. A month later, U.S. District Judge Donetta Ambrose administratively closed the case in federal court in Pittsburgh after the U.S. Justice Department said it was investigating whether Alcoa made corrupt payments in Bahrain.

Alcoa asked Ambrose last month to reopen the case and sought permission to file a motion seeking its dismissal because racketeering law “does not apply to the extraterritorial conduct” alleged by Alba.

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