Vijay Mallya is becoming something of a fixture in London courts.
As the tycoon fights his extradition back to India on fraud charges, another set of lawyers is trying to overturn a £1.15bn ($1.5bn) worldwide freezing order against him across town. In the meantime, Mallya has to get by on 5,000 pounds a week, according to court documents.
On Friday, a London judge upheld the injunction, served on Mallya on Sunday, but granted a short extension to respond to the order because of the parallel proceedings over his extradition. The flamboyant businessman is accused by more than a dozen Indian banks, including the state-owned IDBI Bank Ltd, of wilfully defaulting on about $1.4bn in debt for his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines Ltd.
Mallya was arrested in London in April at the request of Indian authorities. The 61-year-old is currently in the middle of a two-week extradition hearing in a bid to avoid being sent back to his home country to face fraud and money laundering charges.
A judgment on Mallya’s extradition could take several weeks. The hearing has attracted dozens of journalists due to his high-profile in India where he’s often referred to as the “King of Good Times.”
On December 3, the day before his extradition hearing began, he was served with the freezing order. The order was granted after a London judge allowed an Indian court ruling given in January over Mallya’s assets to be enforced in the UK, according to a copy of the banks’ skeleton arguments on Friday.
The banks’ claim Mallya is the beneficial owner of at least three properties, cars and “other valuable chattels,” according to their filings. His address in Hertfordshire, England, where he lives was bought in 2015 for £11.5mn by a company called Ladywalk LLP that the banks say Mallya is behind. The same company bought an adjacent lodge for £1.5mn. Another company believed to be connected to Mallya bought a property in central London in 2005 for £5.5mn. He also has at least two yachts, Force India, on sale for €13.95mn ($16.4mn), and Zippo, being marketed for €329,500.
The banks claim Mallya has breached Indian court orders by dividing some of his assets up between his three children. His son and two daughters are recorded as having nearly $30mn each in property outside India, while his wife has $14.2mn in real estate outside his country of birth. The consortium said it doesn’t know if these disclosures about his family’s assets are true or if Mallya himself is in fact the true owner of all the properties.
“Dr Mallya has arranged his affairs in a way designed to avoid his creditors being able to enforce against him,” Nigel Tozzi, a senior trial lawyer acting for the banks, said in filings. “The evidence of dissipation/secretion is unusually good in this case.”
A request by Mallya to increase his weekly allowance while his assets are frozen from £5,000 to £20,000 was adjourned by his lawyers.
After taking over a beer-and-liquor empire from his father in the 1980s, Mallya built Kingfisher Airlines into one of India’s leading carriers until it was grounded amid mounting debt in 2012. He has gradually ceded control of his drinks businesses to rivals in recent years. Diageo Plc bought his United Spirits Ltd in April 2014, while Heineken NV is now the biggest shareholder of United Breweries, the maker of the nation’s best-selling Kingfisher beer.
Mallya left India nearly two years ago, saying he was moving to England to be closer to his children. He has since refused to return saying he fears an unfair trial amid the “media frenzy and hysteria” over the charges, which he claims are politically motivated.
Indian tycoon Vijay Mallya arrives at Westminster Magistrates Court in central London on Thursday. The 61-year-old is currently in the middle of a two-week extradition hearing in a bid to avoid being sent back to his home country to face fraud and money laundering charges.
