Courts close in on Mallya

ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS CAN SEIZE ASSETS OF THE TYCOON

INDIAN tycoon Vijay Mallya said last Sun­day (8) he will comply fully with court enforcement officers seeking to seize his British assets, but there was not much for them to take as his family’s lavish resi­dences were not in his name.

India wants to extradite the 62-year-old former liquor baron from Britain to face charges of fraud as a group of Indian banks seek to recover more than $1 billion of loans granted to his defunct Kingfisher Airlines.

A verdict is expected by early September, with July 31 the final date for closing oral submissions and appeals likely whatever the outcome.

Speaking at the British Formula One Grand Prix, where he is principal and co-owner of the Force India team, Mallya said he would hand over British assets held in his name. But a luxury country residence belonged to his children and a house in London belonged to his mother, making them untouchable.

“I have given the UK court on affidavit a statement of my UK assets. Which, pursuant to the freezing order, they are entitled to take and hand over to the banks,” he said. “There’s a few cars, a few items of jewellery and I said ‘OK, fine. You don’t have to bother to come to my house to seize them. I’ll physically hand them over. Tell me the time, date and place.’

“There’s no question of being homeless because, at the end of the day, they are enti­tled to take my assets in my name declared on oath to the court. They can’t go one step beyond,” he said.

State Bank of India’s (SBI) managing di­rector Arijit Basu said last Friday (6) that banks in India were “working very closely with various agencies”, including in the UK, to recover assets owned by Mallya after a British court allowed them to search and seize properties of the businessman.

The SBI is the leader of a consortium of 13 banks that lent money to Mallya’s now defunct Kingfisher Airlines.

An order dated June 26 grants permis­sion to the UK High Court enforcement of­ficer to enter Mallya’s properties in Hert­fordshire, near London.

It permits the officer and his agents entry to Ladywalk and Bramble Lodge in Tewin, Welwyn, where Mallya is currently based. However, it is not an instruction to enter, which means the banks have the option to use the order as one of the means to recover estimated funds of around £1.145 billion.

Mallya added that a super-yacht he used for entertaining at races in Monaco and Abu Dhabi, which was recently sold at auc­tion in Malta after a dispute over unpaid crew wages, was not his problem either.

“I have not owned the Indian Empress boat for more than seven years now,” he said. It had belonged to “a Middle East­ern gentleman”, whose name he would not disclose, in a deal that gave Mallya use of it for one month a year, he explained.

Mallya has been in Britain since he left India in March 2016, unable to travel after his passport was revoked, so the annual British Grand Prix is the only race he has been able to attend since then.

The Indian government’s Enforcement Directorate, which fights financial crimes, is seeking to declare him a “fugitive economic offender” and to confiscate `125 billion (£1.3bn) worth of his assets.

Mallya has denied the charges, decried a “political witchhunt” and has said he is seeking to sell assets worth about `139 bil­lion (£1.5bn) to repay creditors.

“The overriding consideration that eve­rybody seems to be missing is that I have put $2 billion worth of assets in front of the Karnataka high court, which is more than sufficient to repay the banks,” he said.

“So the question of attaching assets ei­ther in the UK or whatever should not arise.”

Mallya repeated recent complaints on Twitter that Indian criminal enforcement agencies had frozen assets in India so he could not sell them, while banks continued to tot up interest.

He said the enforcement directorate had also attached assets inherited from his fa­ther, including properties acquired in the 1920s, under the provisions of the Preven­tion of Money Laundering Act.

“How can those be proceeds of crime? This is the injustice that is happening,” he said.

The former billionaire, once dubbed the ‘King of Good Times’ and a former member of the upper house of the Indian parlia­ment, bridled at being branded a ‘fugitive’.

“I was always a resident of England and a non-resident of India. So where else do I come back to? So where’s the running away concept?” he said. (Reuters, PTI)