Indian-origin billionaire Arvind Tiku takes British intelligence company to court over alleged breach of data protection rights

Arvind Tiku, founder and chairman of AT Capital group, a private investment company headquartered in Singapore.

A Singapore-based Indian billionaire has dragged a British intelligence and cyber security company to the high court in London in a case which features a UK country house - once the marital home of Prince Andrew, a Kazakh tycoon, Morgan Stanley - and allegations of money laundering.

Arvind Tiku, founder and chairman of AT Capital group, a private investment company headquartered in Singapore, has filed a lawsuit seeking compensation and a declaration from S-RM Intelligence and Risk Consulting Limited that the personal data held by them about him is inaccurate.

S-RM provides insights to clients on individuals which includes due diligence, and background checks to help them “navigate complex risks”. From November 2014 till February 2020, S-RM is alleged to have made four reports on Tiku and disclosed it to third parties. Except for one report (made around October 2015) that was prepared and given to Morgan Stanley, Tiku says he does not know who else had commissioned the reports and to whom the data was disclosed.

In February 2021, Tiku made a data subject access report seeking a full copy of the personal data in those reports. In the UK, individuals have the right to access and receive copies of their personal data and other information held by companies to see how and for what purpose it is being used. In March 2021, S-RM provided a redacted copy of the Morgan Stanley report to Tiku, and declined to identify the entities who had commissioned additional reports, saying that they were outside the territorial scope of the UK/EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This also possibly means that the data contained in these reports were effectively transferred outside the UK and European Union.

Tiku studied mechanical engineering at the Kazakh National Technical University before the dissolution of Soviet Russia. He established a successful company in Kazakhstan trading in grain. But it was in the oil and gas industry that he made big money. As managing director for Central Asia at Marc Rich Investment AG, he established an international trading division for crude oil. He also became a business associate of steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal and director of a London Stock Exchange-listed oil and gas company.

Sunninghill Park. (Source: Scanned from the original 1943 photograph by Edward Brewster Freeland/Wikimedia Commons)

In 2007, Timur Kulibayev, the billionaire son-in-law of Kazakhstan's first and longest serving President Nursultan Nazarbayev bought Sunninghill Park which was gifted to Prince Andrew by Queen Elizabeth. Kulibayev famously paid £15 million for the house which was on the market for five long years and had £12 million as the asking price. Kulibayev was introduced to Prince Andrew by his glamorous mistress Goga Ashkenazi, who dabbles in oil and gas and runs Milan-based haute couture label Vionnet.

Fifteen years after the sale of Sunninghill Park, Tiku has cornered S-RM for authoring a report for Morgan Stanley that alleges that the house was bought as a front to launder proceeds amassed from the sale of Kazakh state assets. Tiku’s grouse is that the report was based on media reports which were regurgitated by S-RM without any proper investigation or verification.

The report submitted to Morgan Stanley also said that, “there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the claimant [Tiku] was involved in corrupt schemes to sell Kazakh state-owned assets to Chinese buyers at reduced prices in exchange for multi-million-dollar private payments, and in doing so lawfully gained US $165.9 million.” The report went on to describe Tiku as a “politically exposed person owing to his close business associations with Mr Kulibayev” and that he represents a “medium corruption, reputational and source of wealth risk for a financial service provider.” The report also has negative references to Tiku’s previous business ventures involving individuals and companies in Switzerland and Kazakhstan.

The 51-year-old Tiku who has been featured in Forbes and Tatler and is fluent in Hindi, Russian, English and Kashmiri has alleged that S-RM has breached his data protection rights and must give out a declaration that the personal data they hold is inaccurate. He has also demanded compensation for harming his “personal dignity” and causing him “anxiety and distress”.

Tiku maintains that a probe by the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland and Kazakhstan officials into these allegations was closed after a three-year investigation in 2013 with no charges pressed. Apart from allegations of money-laundering and impropriety, the report for Morgan Stanley also claims that it is Kulibayev who is the beneficial owner of AT Capital.

It is still not clear why Morgan Stanley commissioned that report. Tiku and Kulibayev, while maintaining that they have had business relations, have denied any wrongdoing. In court filings, Tiku says that he had an “arm’s length commercial relationship with Kulibayev.”

Tiku’s barrister, the formidable Hugh Tomlinson, was named by Tory MP Bob Seely in the House of Commons earlier this month as one of the four top-notch lawyers who have helped Vladimir Putin’s henchmen. The mention of the house once belonging to the embattled Prince Andrew who has already garnered much bad press, oil and gas companies in central Asia, and talks of money laundering is bound to give much traction to the case as it progresses.

But for the low-profile Tiku, what matters is that he gets his name cleared of these serious allegations as he was neither contacted for comment prior to the reports nor did he get any opportunity to “rectify the serious and damaging inaccuracies”. S-RM is being represented by Osborne Clarke LLP.

Since publishing this article, Tiku's counsel has provided the following statement:

“Arvind Tiku and S-RM Intelligence and Risk Consulting Limited [S-RM] have settled Mr Tiku’s data protection claim against S-RM. S-RM had prepared due diligence reports about Mr Tiku in order to assist its clients to comply with their regulatory obligations. Such reports referred to various allegations that had been made against Mr Tiku by third parties. In the light of information and documentation that has now been provided by Mr Tiku to S-RM, S-RM has agreed to delete the relevant reports and has informed the clients who received such reports accordingly. In doing so, S-RM took account of the fact that the Swiss and Kazakh authorities investigated the business dealings of Mr Tiku, and that such investigations were closed in 2013 with no charges brought and no finding of any wrongdoing. On this basis, S-RM accepts that the allegations investigated by the authorities are false.”

An email sent to S-RM for comment on this statement remained unanswered at the time of this update. This article will be updated again with the British firm's response.

In a letter sent to Moneycontrol, Schillings, the law firm representing Timur Kulibayev, sent the following response.

Following the publication of this article, Timur Kulibayev has been in correspondence with S-RM. As a result of this correspondence, S-RM has agreed to delete additional reports which related to Mr Kulibayev and referred to allegations about him. S-RM has also communicated the deletion of these reports to the clients who received them. The reports referred to a number of allegations that had been made against Mr Kulibayev by third parties, including that he engaged in corruption, embezzlement and money laundering. On the basis of information that has been provided to S-RM, and the fact that Mr Kulibayev’s business dealings were investigated by the Swiss and Kazakh authorities, who closed their investigations in 2013 with no finding of any wrongdoing against Mr Kulibayev, S-RM accepts that these allegations are false.