Saudi prince faces court grilling for 'breaking promise on Airbus sale'

 
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Paul Cheston25 June 2013
WEST END FINAL

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The billionaire owner of the Savoy is set to become the first Saudi royal to be questioned in the High Court when he faces allegations that he reneged on a $10 million agreement sealed at a West End restaurant.

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a nephew of King Fahd, will step into the witness box during a trial expected to start next week. Lawyers are predicting fireworks when a member of the Saudi royalty, who are unused to having their wishes queried, is subjected to a robust interrogation by a QC in open court.

Prince Alwaleed, 58, is being sued by a consultant who brokered a $120 million (£76 million) sale by the prince of a private plane to Colonel Gaddafi.

Daad Sharab, 52, a Jordanian consultant, says she was promised $10 million (£6.3 million) commission which was verbally agreed at the Ayoush restaurant near Oxford Circus. The prince says no fixed commission was agreed.

Prince Alwaleed, who was received at No 10 by David Cameron in February, is worth between $20 billion and $30 billion (£12.7 billion and £19.1 billion) and has stakes in the Hotel George  V in Paris, Canary Wharf and News International.

Through his Kingdom Holdings company he describes himself as “the world’s foremost value investor”, and is suing Forbes, publisher of the Rich List, for allegedly underestimating his wealth by $9.6 billion (£6.1 billion).

In previous hearings the court has been told that the prince had bought an Airbus A340 for his private use for $90 million (£57.3 billion) and fitted it out to his tastes. After sanctions were lifted on Libya in 1999 Gaddafi decided he needed a private plane to fit his new image as he was courted by western leaders such as then PM Tony Blair.

In 2001 Ms Sharab was brought in as broker and she says a verbal agreement was reached at the restaurant with Prince Alwaleed’s representative Fouad Alaeddin that August. She says the prince agreed to pay her $2 million (£1.2 million) but if the final sale price exceeded $110 million (£70 million), she would get the difference.

Prince Alwaleed says the understanding was that she would be paid only at his discretion depending on his view of her contribution to the deal and Mr Alaeddin was not authorised to reach such an agreement. So far, he has not paid her any commission.

Ms Sharab says she previously had a similar verbal agreement with Mr Alaeddin, on behalf of the prince, on a separate project with the Libyan authorities over a development in Tripoli and he happily paid her $500,000 (£318,000) for her help.

The Airbus negotiations dragged on until 2005 and involved a number of visits by Ms Sharab to Libya to meet Gaddafi and his entourage.

The case has taken time to come to court partly because the dictator ended up detaining Ms Sharab for some years until she was released after the 2011 uprising which led to his death.

Prince Alwaleed did not want the case to be heard in London and fought the question of jurisdiction all the way to the House of Lords. The judges ruled that it should be heard here because the alleged restaurant agreement was said to have been made here.

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