The Abu Dhabi court held BR Shetty knowingly took part in hiding billions in borrowings and diverting company money at the collapsed hospital group.
The Abu Dhabi Global Market Court has held BR Shetty, founder of the collapsed hospital operator NMC Health plc, liable for a fraud of about US$5.4 billion at the formerly London-listed group, Bar & Bench reported. The judgment of the Court of First Instance is dated 5 November.
In a civil judgment under the ADGM Insolvency Regulations, Justice Sir Andrew Smith found that Shetty and a co-defendant, former chief executive Manghat, knowingly took part in a scheme that misappropriated company money, concealed borrowings and manipulated the group's accounts. He set US$5.397 billion as the starting point for assessing what the two must contribute to the company's assets, and rejected Shetty's defence that he was himself the victim of fraud by senior executives.
The court examined more than 500 transfers into Shetty's personal bank accounts, totalling US$1.1 billion (AED 4.18 billion), or about US$708.4 million (AED 2.6 billion) net of money returned to the group. The funds went on items including private aircraft, property in Dubai Hills and an investment in a Wyoming oil field. The accounts were also false: by December 2018 the group carried about US$3.88 billion in borrowings it had not disclosed while reporting debt of US$1.99 billion. The court found that sham supplier invoices, financed by banks and routed back to the group, were used to disguise the borrowing.
The court will hold a further hearing to set the final sums, interest and costs, Bar & Bench reported. Shetty founded NMC in Abu Dhabi in 1975. It listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2012 and later joined the FTSE 100.
