Broadsheet case: NAB pays $28.7mn to British company

LONDON: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has paid $28.7 million to the British firm Broadsheet after losing the case in the London High Court.

The British High Court has issued orders against the attachment of four flats of Avonfield Apartments owned by the Sharif family in a case filed by Broadsheet against the Government of Pakistan and NAB.

Broadsheet had requested attachment of four apartments in the petition while the lawyers of the Sharif family welcomed the court decision. Former President Pervez Musharraf had hired Broadsheet in 1999 to trace the properties of Nawaz Sharif, Asif Ali Zardari, Benazir Bhutto, and others. The deal expired in 2003.

In December 2018, former English court of appeal Judge Sir Anthony Evans QC, as sole arbitrator, issued an order for payment of $22m to Broadsheet by the government of Pakistan. In July this year, the government appealed the arbitration but was unsuccessful in its bid.

The arbitrator found that Pakistan and NAB had wrongfully repudiated an asset recovery agreement with Broadsheet and ruled that the company is entitled to damages.

Owned by Iranian-born former Oxford University academic Kaveh Moussavi, Broadsheet is now under the supervision of a court-appointed liquidator who initially funded the arbitration and previously served a yearlong prison sentence in England for contempt of court in unrelated proceedings.

Broadsheet claims that it was established to enter into an Asset Recovery Agreement dated June 20, 2000, and did so with the then president of Pakistan, through the NAB chairman, for the purposes of recovering funds and other assets fraudulently taken from the state and other institutions, including through corrupt practices, and held outside of Pakistan.