The details emerged in a case brought by Britain's financial regulator, the Financial Services Authority, against UBS bankers
An off-shore investment vehicle, called Pleuri, was sought to be set up in Mauritius to help Anil Ambani's ADAG (Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group) group funnel money to India illegally, a London tribunal has been told.
Two UBS bankers, who were behind the move and have since left the bank, allegedly misled the bank's compliance team claiming that Pleuri was owned by a French couple.
According to the evidence reported to have been produced before the tribunal, Mr. Ambani, described by bank officials as a ‘mega client', was its ultimate owner. It was aimed at helping Mr. Ambani invest in stocks and securities in India bypassing the law which prohibits Indian nationals and companies from investing through foreign institutional investors.
Eventually, the bank refused to approve the structure. The details, reported by The Financial Times on Tuesday, emerged in a case brought by Britain's financial regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), against Sachin Karpe, a former head of UBS's India desk in London. The case flows from a £1.25 million fine FSA imposed on Mr. Karpe and which he is challenging. The other banker involved in the deal cannot be named for legal reasons. According to the FT report, the FSA told the tribunal that “the source of funds (for Pleuri)...was plainly the Ambani family.''
No wrongdoing
Mr. Karpe's counsel acknowledged that his client ‘enabled' the transaction but denied any wrongdoing.
“(Mr Ambani) asked for a transaction and Sachin Karpe enabled it. The most that can be thrown at (Mr. Karpe's) door was that he probably ought to have told the client that the bank would not deal with him because the transaction was not legal in India,'' he said.
A Reliance official in London declined to comment.
Meanwhile, Mr. Ambani was reported to have reached a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Board of Indian over allegations of violating borrowing rules without admitting liability.
Keywords: Anil Ambani, ADAG
Indians seem to have lost their confidence in Congress Government.Rupee has a very weak currency and recntly fell badly from Rs44 to Rs 54 per dollar and this has propmted many of us to get rid of all our savings and acquire Gold, Silver or US Dollar
Indian govt and politicians are morally maimed. They need crutches from Ambanis and likes to be there. Agency like SEBI could not do anything. I doubt Lokpal will be effective since GOI is backing these thieves.
The world is run by rich people and India is no exception.The laws for the poor and the laws for the rich are different.Will Anna Hazare do something about it?
How come Raja (of 2G fame) spends time in jail for violating the rules and the Ambani family holidaying in Swiss apls for a similar offence - hoodwinking the Indian of his legitimate dues?
that is why we need STRONG lokpal. these Ambanis will sell the country and loot the poor.
if anil ambani and ratan tata cheat the exchequer in thousands of crores, the country should forgive them, becos they are symbol of countries entrepreneurship and they employ thousand of people.....But if common anil and ratan cheats / evades 25000 Rs tax, then the government will do everything to make their life miserable, and its fine if they loose job or commit suicide (our farmers..) its just 4 of a family, we can live with 4 suicides or little more a day, because we have 1 billion strong population.Am I correct, Mr.Manmohan, Mr.Pranab, Mr.Kapil Sibal....? When we copy america and other countries for every other damn crap, why cant we prosecute these big ticket cheaters in line with enron, worldcom, Bernie Madoff.
Looks like we will have to wait for the foreign courts to tells us who is stashing black money abroad.. Our courts and government is unwilling and incapable.
ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT GOLD. : It is unfortunate that lots of Indians have become enamored by the Stock Market Manipulated operations of these unscrupulous operators. Nothing has changed in India in the last 30 years. These kind of manipulations were done by Anil Ambani's father too. The role of SEBI has to be questioned too, just like how a US Judge has questioned SEC's settlement with Citigroup.
What is meant by settlement, steal 100 crore and pay 1 crore in fine and 2 crore in bribe. shame on SEBI for not giving out heavy penalties to discourage these activities...
The success of the players in this game is that they could delay the publication of the details of the episode of 2006! Further the consent order of SEBI enabled faster 'settlement' of a punishable offence with Rs 50,00,00,000! !MONEY OH MONEY.
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