LONDON, April 5 (Reuters) – Prateek Gupta’s attorneys are looking for an extension of a deadline to problem a $625 million world freezing order imposed by a London Court docket on the Indian businessman and his companies till June, a spokesperson mentioned on Wednesday.
Freezing orders are injunctions granted by the English courts to restrain people or companies from disposing of or coping with belongings on a worldwide foundation.
Commodity dealer Trafigura, which sought the order, mentioned in February that it had booked a $577 million cost regarding what it alleges is “systematic fraud” by Gupta’s corporations over nickel cargoes.
Gupta beforehand aimed to arrange “a sturdy response” to the allegations and file the applying to take away the freezing order by April 6.
“The shoppers are within the means of acquiring an extension of time for the meant discharge utility, and the brand new deadline is prone to be in June,” the spokesperson for Gupta mentioned in an e mail.
A London courtroom imposed the freezing order, dated Feb. 8, on financial institution accounts and different belongings tied to Gupta and 7 corporations Trafigura mentioned are managed by him, together with these in Britain, Singapore, Malaysia and Switzerland.
In courtroom papers submitted beforehand, Trafigura mentioned it started to suspect in October final 12 months that round 25,000 tonnes of steel offered by Gupta’s companies might not be high-grade nickel, and commenced inspecting greater than 1,000 delivery containers.
In February, Trafigura advised the decide in a closed-door listening to that a number of the first containers inspected had been discovered to include carbon metal, which is price a fraction of the value of nickel.
Reporting by Pratima Desai, Eric Onstad and Polina Devitt; modifying by Kirsten Donovan
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