Diamond and jewelry tycoon Jatin Mehta failed to halt a UK court case which aims to recover over $1 billion that he allegedly swindled from over a dozen banks.
The UK’s high court on Tuesday rejected the Indian magnate’s request to halt legal proceedings initiated by liquidation firm Grant Thornton that’s backed by Standard Chartered Plc and its local Indian unit.
Mehta failed to demonstrate that “India is clearly or distinctly the more appropriate forum than England for the trial of this case,” Judge Edwin Johnson said in his ruling.
Mehta, whose $932 million in assets were frozen last year by a UK court, is among the most high-profile cases of alleged fraud in India’s diamond industry, which cuts or polishes about 90% of the world’s supply. A series of fraud scandals in the past decade contributed to an $8 billion hole in India’s banking system.
Mehta and his two firms Winsome Diamonds and Jewellery Ltd. and Forever Precious Diamonds & Jewellery Ltd. are alleged to have deliberately defaulted on loans in 2013, laundered the money and hid it in shell companies across the globe, leaving 15 Indian banks unpaid, according to court documents.
The verdict does not make any findings on the allegations of fraud and Mehta denies all allegations of wrongdoings, according to the verdict. Mehta had earlier alleged that Standard Chartered and Grant Thornton got the asset freeze order unfairly, and that he is as much a victim as the banks.
The court’s ruling that UK is an appropriate forum for the case does not stop a future hearing on Mehta’s request to quash the case for other reasons, his lawyer Stephen Ross said.
“The Defendants have existing applications for strike out which have yet to be determined” he said.
Grant Thornton and Standard Chartered didn’t have any immediate comment when contacted after the ruling.
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