JTS Trading Ltd. sues Sahara.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: An Indian conglomerate’s effort to sell both the Grosvenor Hotel of London and New York’s Plaza and Dream hotels as part of a plan to pay the bail of its jailed majority owner has stalled due to a Hong Kong investment company’s claim that it was unfairly shut out of the deal.
JTS Trading Ltd.’s U.S. lawsuit seeks to block Sahara India from moving forward with the sale of the hotels, which would impede Sahara’s goal of raising the $1.6 billion in bail for controlling stakeholder, Subrata Roy, who was jailed in India last year for failing to comply with a court order to repay investors, according to Bloomberg.
Roy was incarcerated in March 2014 after Indian authorities mandated he repay 30 million investors $3.9 billion for selling a convertible debt instrument without approval, which he failed to do.
JTS Trading claims it reached a deal with a United Arab Emirates private trust to finance the purchase of the three hotels, with JTS trading getting a 70 percent stake for its $850 million investment. However, the Hong Kong company company said it was stonewalled when a Sahara subsidiary made a separate deal with the United Arab Emirates-based company, Trinity White City Ventures Ltd.
India’s Directorate General of Economic Enforcement also alleged the Sahara investors “are fictitious identities created to conceal an even more nefarious money-laundering operation,” according to JTS Trading’s filing in New York state court.
Sources have informed Indian network CNBC-TV18 that Sahara India is confident the suit will be dismissed in the July 8 hearing as the group believes it cannot be held liable for transactions that could not work out. The group had invited interests from a number of players for the sale of its properties.
Pune-based billionaire Cyrus Poonawalla, owner of the world’s biggest vaccine maker, Serum Institute of India, as well as the Sultan of Brunei were also said to be interested in buying the hotels in 2014, but no accord was reached.
1 Comment
Real allegations against sahara by a foreign based company was probably that of Mirach. They had alleged that Sahara was not interested in selling property and only fooling everybody . It would have been wroth while to examine