Dubai court orders Sanjay Shah to repay $1.7 billion in tax fraud case

Dubai’s highest court ordered on Tuesday a British hedge fund trader convicted of orchestrating a $1.7 billion tax fraud to pay that amount to Denmark’s tax authority.

Financier Sanjay Shah was convicted in a lower court of masterminding a scheme that ran from 2012 to 2015. Under it, foreign businesses pretended to own shares in Danish companies and claimed tax refunds for which they were not eligible. He was arrested in Dubai last year.

Shah and his lawyers declined to comment on Tuesday’s ruling.

The Court of Cassation also ordered Shah and several foreign businesses implicated in the scheme to pay 5 per cent interest on the $1.7 billion accrued from when the case was first filed in August 2018.

Al Omar & Al Sabah Advocates and Legal Consultancy, the Danish Customs and Tax Administration’s (DCTA) representative in Dubai, reportedly stated that the verdict confirms the UAE judiciary’s stance against any financial violations. It also confirmed that the process of repayment has already started.

Last September, the Dubai Appeals Court found Shah and his accomplices guilty of illegally extracting money from Danish tax authorities. His lawyers appealed that verdict to the Court of Cassation, which upheld the earlier ruling Tuesday and ordered Shah to pay the $1.7 billion.

In a separate ruling, Shah was ordered to be extradited to Denmark after the Dubai court rejected his appeal against deportation in April. He is expected to face prosecution in Denmark on the tax fraud allegations. It wasn’t immediately clear when he will be extradited.

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