Autonomy founder and billionaire Mike Lynch can be extradited to the US, court rules July 22, 2021 British tech billionaire and Autonomy founder Mike Lynch has lost an attempt to block extradition to the US on fraud charges, a court ruled today. Lynch faces decades in prison if found guilty over the £7.1bn sale of his software company Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard in 2011 and will go to California to answer criminal charges. [...]
Questions pile up for Gupta after ‘deeply discourteous’ inquiry snub July 14, 2021 MPs on the parliamentary business committee have written to steel tycoon Sanjeev Gupta criticising his “deeply discourteous” decision not to appear before an enquiry into embattled Liberty Steel. They also questioned the “unusual extent to which you personally control the finances of Liberty Steeland its associated companies”. Gupta is the chief executive and chairman of [...]
‘Memory affected by long Covid’: Top City lawyer denies lying under oath July 9, 2021 City lawyer Neil Gerrard rejected the notion he lied under oath during a multimillion-pound High Court trial after text messages emerged suggesting he knew one of his client’s senior employees was secretly giving evidence to investigators. Gerrard and his firm Dechert represented Kazakh mining giant Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) between 2011 and 2013, investigating [...]
UK Bribery Act 10 years on: Have City firms improved their anti-corruption conduct? July 1, 2021 Today it is ten years ago that the UK Bribery Act 2010 came into force, on 1 July 2011. What has changed? The law presented itself as a radical and comprehensive overhaul of UK anti-bribery and corruption law, while its introduction was spearheaded by the Ministry of Justice and Serious Fraud Office (SFO), looking to [...]
City lawyer Neil Gerrard of Dechert denies allegation he was ‘in rape mode’ June 30, 2021 A top City lawyer alleged to have told colleagues that he was going to “screw” his client for millions of pounds in fees has emphatically denied the claim, telling the High Court it was “utterly ridiculous”. Kazakh mining giant Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) is suing its former lawyer Neil Gerrard for allegedly leaking confidential [...]
New boss at Liberty Steel UK as GFG restructuring continues June 28, 2021 Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance has today replaced Liberty Steel UK’s boss as it continues to overhaul its embattled operations. In a restructuring update, the company said that Roy Chowdhury would take over from Jon Ferriman as chief executive. It also said it was exploring the possible sale of Liberty Steel’s UK engineering business. The moves [...]
Parts of Liberty Steel ‘challenged’, says finance chief June 22, 2021 Liberty Steel’s UK finance chief has today told MPs that parts of the metals group are “challenged” as Sanjeev Gupta’s company seeks to refinance the business. Since the collapse of chief financial backer Greensill Capital in March, Gupta’s GFG Alliance – of which Liberty Steel is a part – has been racing against its creditors [...]
Credit Suisse ‘wooed’ Sanjeev Gupta before Greensill collapse June 11, 2021 Credit Suisse has been embroiled in further controversy over its links to Sanjeev Gupta after details emerged about the Swiss lender’s direct relationship with the tycoon. Former executives at the bank told the Financial Times that leadership wooed Gupta, offering him a string of services as his private wealth manager, as well as VIP treatment. [...]
UK fraud watchdog seizes dirty money tied to nearly £500m global metal scam June 7, 2021 The UK’s fraud watchdog has seized £247k of dirty money from an account linked to Virendra Rastogi, a puppeteer in an around £493m global fraud case. Once one of the UK’s richest men, Rastogi was one of three former directors of RGB Resources convicted of running an international metal trading scam that cost banks dotted [...]
Trafigura ‘warned’ Credit Suisse over ‘suspect’ GFG invoice June 3, 2021 Commodities trading house Trafigura warned Credit Suisse over a suspect invoice from Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance in July 2020, it has emerged. The so-called receivable, the FT reported, indicated that Trafigura owed money to Liberty Commodities, the metal trading arm of Gupta’s conglomerate. Prior to going bust in March, Greensill, GFG’s main financier, would lend [...]