Billionaire Gambler Sued By Iran In UK Court

Well you couldn't make this up Part 3.....

Taken from The Times, UK, May 11, 2007
By Michael Herman and Alex Spence

A billionaire trader who is one of the world’s most prolific gamblers has won a £60m High Court battle with the Iranian military over a missing aeroplane, Times Online has learnt.

Fouad al-Zayat - known in casinos across the world as the "Fat Man" - was accused by the Iranians of taking payment for a luxurious jumbo jet which was never delivered.

Mr al-Zayat claimed that he had failed to deliver the plane, meant for use by the country’s President, because of a dispute over money.



The disclosure will drag the shy Mr al-Zayat into the limelight once again. The Syrian born entrepreneur, who is said to have gambled more than £200m, was reluctantly exposed to publicity in March when he was successfully sued by Aspinalls casino over a £2m gambling debt.

The case also shows that despite the kidnapping of British soldiers last month, the Iranian Government still uses the British courts to settle costly disputes.

Jason McCue, Mr al-Zayat’s solicitor, said that the British courts should not be used by the Iranian Government to settle costly and needless disputes.

“This whole case is preposterous. The Iranian military kidnap our troops one week and then try and use our courts the next to settle a private commercial dispute that has nothing to do with the UK.

“The Iranians are working flat out to develop nuclear weapons and British taxpayers' are footing the bill for court time to decide whether we should help them boost their coffers,” he said.

The case centres on a deal that Mr al-Zayat brokered during 2002 with intermediaries acting for Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former Iranian President.

The Iranian leader had ordered a £49m passenger jet through Mr al-Zayat’s companies in Britain, Cyprus and the Middle east.

The deal got bogged down in a complex dispute about payments. During a trip to Lebanon in May 2004, Mr al-Zayat claims that he was kidnapped at gunpoint by members of the Iranian Revolutionary guard in Beirut.

According to reports, he was held under guard in the Iranian embassy for a week and was released only after he had signed a document agreeing to pay back the money that the Iranians claimed that he owed them.

Mr al-Zayat is an imposing figure. He is 6ft tall and has acquired his nickname because of a large waistline.

He stays at the Four Seasons, Park Lane, when in London. He is a well-known figure among the wealthy Lebanese and Syrian communities in Knightsbridge and Kensington and has the reputation of being extremely generous.

Four years ago, Mr al-Zayat told a newspaper that he had lost large sums at the roulette table in London.

“This is the only sin I have," he said. "I have lost a lot of money. I know it's wrong to lose money like this, but if you've ever been to a casino you will understand what the atmosphere is like,” he said.

Mr al-Zayat, who is married with three children, built his fortune on a string of lucrative deals. Former business partners say that he acted as an intermediary in contracts for the supply of defence-related equipment in Cyprus and the Middle East.

He has been named in the US courts as a businessman who gave tens of thousands of dollars to a corrupt Republican congressman. Robert Ney was sentenced to 30 months in jail after telling the court that he accepted money from a number of sources, including gambling chips from Mr al-Zayat.

The Iranian Ministry of Defence sued Mr al-Zayat and his aircraft leasing business FAZ Aviation in London’s High Court.

The Iranians argued that since FAZ Aviation’s “principal place of business” at the time it began legal proceedings was London, a UK court should hear its claim for recovery of the money lost on the aircraft.

But on Wednesday Mr Justice Langley, sitting in the commercial court, dismissed the Iranian's case. He ruled that FAZ Aviation – which is incorporated in Cyprus and has its registered office in Nicosia – did not conduct sufficient business in London at the time of the claim. The UK courts, therefore, had no jurisdiction to intervene in this dispute, he said.

The Iranian Government’s solicitors at Norton Rose declined to comment on its client’s plans.

The decision is the second time that a British court has refused to help Iran recover its alleged losses. Earlier this year it asked the Serious Fraud Office to apply for a freezing order on Mr Al-Zayat’s assets as part of an Iranian criminal investigation into the Airbus deal.

The freezing order was initially granted but subsequently revoked after a judge discovered it had been requested by an Iranian military judge.

The SFO will appeal this at a hearing next Tuesday. If the appeal fails, Mr Al-Zayat will be able to sue the British Government for compensation over his treatment.