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Barwa fails in bid to freeze Tannenbaum associate's assets |
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August 20 2009
Barwa Real Estate Co.,
Qatar’s second-largest property developer, has confirmed it is
continuing its bid to freeze the assets of Dean Rees - an associate of
alleged Ponzi scheme operator, Barry Tannenbaum - after a UK court
turned down a request.
Barwa is 45 percent owned by Qatari Diar Real Estate Co, which in turn is controlled by the Qatar government.
“We
are after him,” said Tamer Mohamed Khedr, Barwa’s financial adviser for
the chairman and managing director, in a telephone interview in Doha on
Tuesday, news agency Bloomberg reported.
He declined to specify the countries in which further action would be taken.
Rees,
who claims he was duped by Tannenbaum, has been accused of recruiting
investors for the Sydney-based businessman, who is being investigated
by South African authorities over allegations he ran a Ponzi scheme
worth as much as 2 billion rand ($248 million).
Barwa
started court proceedings against Rees in June after the South African
weekly magazine Financial Mail said the Qatari company lost more than
$30 million investing with Tannenbaum’s companies.
Barwa’s application was dismissed by a UK court last week, Rees said in a phone interview from Switzerland.
Brian
Biebuyck, Rees’s Johannesburg-based lawyer, said the UK case was
“discharged on the basis that the English court had no jurisdiction.”
He said the company hasn’t approached him in South Africa, Bloomberg
added.
Tannenbaum meanwhile failed to respond to e-mailed
questions from Bloomberg. In a statement back on June 13 he described
some of the allegations against him as “drivel.”
Source: Arabian Business
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