Latest news with #BankAudi
The National
06-05-2025
- Business
- The National
Saudi-born businessman to take $24m battle with Lebanese bank to UK court
A Saudi-born businessman has won the right for his battle for a Lebanese bank to give him a payment of $24 million to be heard by a court in the UK. Sheikh Mohammed Omar Kassem Alesayi asked Bank Audi to transfer the money, held in eight accounts, to an account he held with the UBP private bank in Geneva in 2022 but the bank has refused. The request came during Lebanon's banking crisis, which began in 2019, and has resulted in banks refusing to make international transfers. Bank Audi has argued that almost all Lebanese banks have limited access to foreign currency which has significantly curtailed their normal operations. Sheikh Alesayi, who was born in Saudi Arabia but is now a UK citizen, started proceedings against the bank in the English courts, seeking an order that the bank carry out the transfer. His claim is based on decisions of the High Court in London that customers of Lebanese banks are entitled to international transfers based on the law of Lebanon, provided there is a sufficient balance. Under UK law, a consumer living in the UK can bring a claim in an English court against a business that pursues commercial activities in the UK or directs such activities there. Bank Audi denied that it directs commercial activities to the UK and argues the High Court has no jurisdiction over the dispute. The bank also argued that Sheikh Alesayi was not domiciled in Britain when he first opened his account in 1994. But Sheikh Alesayi argued that he should be considered as being domiciled in Britain since 2016, when he opened an account with the UBP, and was by that time living full-time in London. As part of his claim, he told the High Court he has long-standing connections to the UK, dating to the 1970s. His father bought eight properties in the upmarket St John's Wood area of London and gave them to Sheikh Alesayi and his five siblings. From about 1990, he said he established a second home at the property and began regularly attending Regent's Park Mosque. The court was told that he bought a Bentley and had it delivered to the penthouse and also employed a chauffeur, which is indicative of permanent residency. Sheikh Alesayi was granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK as a Tier 1 Investor in 2018. He was granted Settlement Status with Indefinite Leave to Remain in 2021 and then in 2023 he was granted British citizenship. In his ruling, Judge Adam Constable said that 'Sheikh Alesayi has a good arguable case that he was domiciled in London from around 2012 onwards' and that the High Court has jurisdiction in the dispute. Lebanese banks imposed arbitrary restrictions on their clients in 2019 after the state failed to honour its bond commitments and the economy went into a tailspin. The Covid-19 pandemic forced the economic crisis to historic proportions. The possibility of Lebanese depositors soon gaining access up to $93 billion stuck in the country's banks is slim to none, financial analysts say, despite assurances from the Lebanese economy minister. The economic collapse was blamed on decades of financial mismanagement and corruption by Lebanon's ruling elite. Former central bank governor Riad Salameh has also been accused of helping to embezzle hundreds of millions of dollars from the central bank. A subsidiary of Bank Audi, Banque Audi (Suisse) SA, is one of several banks suspected of sheltering the money allegedly embezzled by Mr Salameh. A Swiss financial regulator last year found that Banque Audi (Suisse) 'breached its obligations in the prevention of money laundering' and 'seriously violated financial market law'.
Yahoo
05-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
NYC widow accuses Lebanese bank of ‘stealing' her family's $17.6M fortune
'Corrupt' Lebanese banks stole $17.6 million from an Upper West Side widow and her three kids — and New York courts have refused to help them get their fortune back, she told The Post. Patricia Raad said her husband, Michel, immigrated to the US when he was 18 from their native Lebanon, and spent a lifetime working his way up as a businessman in the cosmetics and perfume industry. For 30 years until his death of cancer in 2009 at age 69, he sent the fruits of his labor — millions of dollars put in a trust for his kids — to Lebanon-based Bank Audi. Nine years after his death, when the trusts matured and were ready to be accessed, Patricia told Bank Audi she planned to transfer the millions to New York. But a Bank Audi manager allegedly begged her not to move the dough and then ignored agreements to deliver the funds, she said in a Manhattan Federal Court lawsuit. The bank manager 'started begging and pleading, saying, 'Please don't do that, it will look bad on me,'' Raad, 70, recalled. 'They betrayed me.' Raad claims she signed agreements with Bank Audi managers in Lebanon to transfer the money in separate installments of about $2 to $3 million to herself, son and daughter — and paid taxes in America on the full amount while waiting. But Bank Audi never transferred a dime, she said in court papers. Lebanon spiraled into a crippling 2019 financial meltdown the World Bank later described as a 'Ponzi scheme,' which encouraged money to flow in while failing to pay for public services or safeguarding depositers such as Raad. In 2022 it was reported that more than $100 billion in deposits were stuck in Lebanon's banking system, with that nation's financial institutions refusing to give people like Raad their cash. 'There can be no genuine debate that $17,623,674 of [Raad's] money on deposit with Bank Audi is immediately due,' she said in the lawsuit, which accused the bank of 'misappropriating' the money. But Raad has had little luck getting New York courts to hear her story. In March 2024, a Manhattan judge rejected her December 2020 lawsuit, contending New York had no jurisdiction over Bank Audi and that the dispute must play out in Lebanese courts. Raad has appealed, and appeared before judges in the US Court of Appeals Second Circuit in Manhattan this week to plead her case. If Raad lived in certain parts of Europe, she would likely be having an easier time fighting for her money, said her attorney, Douglas Kellner. 'England and France do allow their citizens to sue the Lebanese banks — but not the courts in New York,' he said. Raad and her attorneys have argued New York has jurisdiction because Bank Audi had business relationships with Big Apple financial institutions such as Bank of New York Mellon, Citibank, JP Morgan Chase and Standard Chartered. The connection, known as 'correspondent banks,' allows one financial institution to provide services on behalf of another. Being unable to get the money her husband secured for their family has been 'devastating,' she said. 'The trust was to protect his children and protect the money,' she said, adding that being deprived of the funds 'was like killing Michel a second time by taking his legacy.'
