Irish hotelier sues Qatari royals over alleged fraud in Beverly Hills deal

Los Angeles Times

25-04-2025

As Irish hotelier Patrick McKillen tells it, he met the former emir of Qatar on a yacht in Doha to discuss a business opportunity in California, more than 8,000 miles away.
McKillen and Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani were discussing the purchase of a Beverly Hills hotel, which McKillen said he committed to managing and redeveloping.
Now that hotel — the Maybourne Beverly Hills — is at the center of a civil racketeering complaint filed in the Central District of California on Tuesday, in which McKillen accuses Qatari royals of orchestrating 'a global scheme' to defraud him and his company of hundreds of millions of dollars for work completed on several luxury properties.
In the lawsuit, McKillen, who reportedly co-owns a whiskey distillery with U2 frontman Bono, said he and his team 'undertook a massive redevelopment effort' on the Beverly Hills hotel — where rooms go for more than $1,000 a night — over a two-year period, but were not paid millions of dollars allegedly owed for the work done.
McKillen, a citizen of Ireland and the United Kingdom, brought the complaint against senior members of the royal family, including Hamad bin Khalifa; and Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, the former prime minister known as 'HBJ'; as well as the family's agents, representatives and controlled businesses.
In the complaint, which encompasses claims already being litigated in courts around the world, McKillen alleges that the schemes against him and his company, Hume Street Management Consultants Limited, 'are part of a years' long pattern of illegal racketeering orchestrated by the Qatari royals and are in line with a history of illicit, lawless actions.'
McKillen's lawyers declined to comment.
'This is the latest of many vacuous claims made by Paddy McKillen and associated parties across multiple jurisdictions, all of which are either on-going or have been struck out by the courts,' the Qatari-owned Maybourne Hotel Group said in a statement. 'As with the other claims, we will contest this latest claim and prove the allegations to be entirely false.'
The federal lawsuit filed in Los Angeles is the latest action taken by McKillen in his long-running legal dispute with the Qatari royal family, a conflict that has made headlines around the world. He has filed actions in the U.S., France and the United Kingdom.
The Maybourne Beverly Hills is also the subject of a breach of contract lawsuit that was filed by McKillen's company in Los Angeles County Superior Court in 2022. That court denied a motion by the company that owns the hotel to force McKillen's company into arbitration. The decision is under appeal.
'It appears that Mr. McKillen would prefer to litigate in the press rather than continue the actions he initiated in the United States, UK, and France and await their outcome,' Jason D. Russell, who is representing Hamad bin Jassim in California actions, said in an email. 'Our client remains confident that these claims, like the myriad others he has filed, will be found to lack merit in a court or by an arbitrator.'
Earlier this year, the High Court in London set aside McKillen's company's permission to serve a claim on Hamad bin Jassim outside of the jurisdiction, finding it had failed to show a real prospect of success, according to court documents. The claim, for around £3.6 million (about $4.8 million), was tied the development of a private home in London for Hamad bin Jassim. The company's appeal was refused earlier this month, according to British court records.
McKillen was also convicted in Paris earlier this year of being physically and verbally aggressive to a bailiff who was in his apartment in the city because of the alleged nonpayment of a loan to the Luxembourg-based Quintet Private Bank.
McKillen's lawyers told the Irish Times that their client 'vigorously denies any violence or any wrongdoing' against the bailiff and claimed the allegations against him were 'false.' McKillen, who was reportedly fined €10,000 (about $11,377) over the incident, has appealed the conviction.
By the time the Qatari royal family approached McKillen about the California hotel in 2019, he said he had been working on projects with them for years.
According to the federal complaint filed in California, in 2004, McKillen acquired shares in a group of luxury hotels that came to be known as the Maybourne Hotel Group. Despite later selling his shares in the group to a company owned by Hamad bin Jassim, McKillen said he continued to manage and redevelop the Maybourne Hotel Group and its hotels at the direction of the royals.
Hamad bin Khalifa later acquired an interest in the Maybourne Hotel Group, according to the complaint.
McKillen said he and his company had been tasked with the management and redevelopment of the refurbishment of a Manhattan mansion owned by Hamad bin Jassim in 2018; the construction and development of a new Parisian hotel on the site of the historic Îlot Saint-Germain building in 2019; and the management and redevelopment of the newly branded Maybourne Beverly Hills hotel in 2019.
McKillen alleges that for each of those projects, the Qatari royals told him he would be compensated through fees for services performed, but that at some point, 'the Qatari Royals decided, in secret, that they would not, in fact, be compensating Mr. McKillen or HSMC.' McKillen alleged in the complaint that he and his company were strung along 'under false representations' that they would be paid.
The complaint detailed the October 2019 meeting on a yacht in Doha, Qatar, between McKillen and Hamad bin Khalifa to discuss the opportunity for the royal family to acquire the California hotel, then known as the Montage Beverly Hills.
McKillen said he presented a vision for the hotel to Hamad bin Khalifa and 'gave his commitment to manage and strategically redevelop' it. A holding company owned by Hamad bin Khalifa purchased the hotel later that year, according to the complaint.
In the complaint, McKillen said a representative of the family confirmed that he and his company would be compensated with fees paid for work performed on the hotel. During the next two years, McKillen said he and his team transitioned the hotel to the Maybourne brand and led the hotel's development and management.
In July 2021, according to the complaint, McKillen submitted a fee proposal to an advisor to the Al Thani family, stating that his company was owed $6 million in project management fees on an annual basis, to be paid quarterly, from January 2020 to January 2025. That proposal was 'met with stonewalling by the Qatari Royals,' the complaint alleges. After months passed with no payment, McKillen said, he wrote a letter to Hamad bin Khalifa and Hamad bin Jassim telling them about the refusal to pay him fees owed and stating that he could no longer work on the project.
McKillen later sent an additional invoice for $12 million in project management fees for work performed in California in 2020 and 2021, according to the complaint. He alleges that none of those fees had been paid.
The Qatari royals are facing a separate legal battle over the Maybourne Riviera, after French authorities sued them for allegedly breaching planning and environmental regulations and illegally building on land exposed to 'seismic risks,' according to an Irish Times article. The newspaper reported that, at a recent hearing, a representative for the Al Thani family blamed McKillen.
McKillen told that news outlet that the alleged breaches occurred two years after he was fired from the project in April 2022.
'The damage was done after we left,' he told the outlet. 'The French state isn't suing me, it's suing the Qataris.'