{"id":7934,"date":"2024-11-15T08:55:37","date_gmt":"2024-11-15T08:55:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/viaro-chief-accused-of-forgery-and-stealing-e144mn-in-london-lawsuit\/"},"modified":"2024-11-15T08:55:37","modified_gmt":"2024-11-15T08:55:37","slug":"viaro-chief-accused-of-forgery-and-stealing-e144mn-in-london-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/?p=7934","title":{"rendered":"Viaro chief accused of forgery and stealing \u20ac144mn in London lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The chief executive of a North Sea oil and gas group faked bank statements and forged board documents to steal at least \u20ac143.8mn, according to a London lawsuit filed by his former company and backer of an Iranian petrochemicals maker.<\/p>\n

The High Court claim is one of several legal battles around the world that have entangled Francesco Mazzagatti, an Italian national who is the chief executive and majority owner of Viaro Energy. The company, and Mazzagatti, became significant players in the UK energy market after it bought RockRose, a listed group with assets in the UK and Dutch North Sea, for \u00a3247mn in cash in 2020.<\/a><\/p>\n

Mazzagatti, and Viaro\u2019s chief financial officer, Francesco Dixit Dominus, are being sued in London by the Singaporean trading company that Mazzagatti once owned, Alliance Petrochemical & Investment (API). It claims its former boss may have \u201cused at least part of the misappropriated funds to acquire a majority share in RockRose Energy\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mazzagatti and Dixit Dominus deny the claims.<\/p>\n

API \u2014 where Mazzagatti was chief executive between July 2018 and September 2020, according to the company \u2014 part-owns the Mehr Petrochemical Company (MHPC) in Iran and is a distributor of its products, such as polyethylene.<\/p>\n

Just months after becoming chief executive, Mazzagatti incorporated a new company, Alliance Petrochemicals Trading (APT), in the Gulf state of Sharjah \u201cwithout the knowledge of API\u2019s other directors\u201d, the company alleges in the London lawsuit.<\/p>\n

He then faked a board resolution authorising him to open APT bank accounts with himself as the sole signatory. Customers of API then paid into a string of accounts across Singapore and the United Arab Emirates that were set up and controlled by Mazzagatti and Dixit Dominus, in exchange for products from the Iranian company, MHPC, according to the claim. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe full extent of the fraud carried out by the defendants is not known to the claimant,\u201d API alleges. But it calculates that at least \u20ac143,808,798.66 was misappropriated, which the company says represents the total amount owed to MHPC by API by August 2023 in exchange for its petrochemicals.<\/p>\n

API claims the pair covered up the misappropriation through \u201cfalse representations\u201d to the board. In 2021, following a meeting in Dubai, Mazzagatti \u201cproduced a false bank statement\u201d to show that there was a balance of nearly Dh100mn (\u20ac25.8mn) being held in an account in the UAE. He had previously told API\u2019s other directors that the instability in the Middle East meant it was \u201cbetter for the funds owed to MHPC to be held outside Iran\u201d.<\/p>\n

A court in Tehran already ruled in May 2023 that MHPC should not deliver any more products to API and that API owed the Iranian company approximately $170mn, according to the London lawsuit.<\/p>\n

The High Court claim also alleges that Mazzagatti may have \u201cused at least part of the misappropriated funds to acquire a majority share in RockRose Energy\u201d. To help secure the deal, Viaro relied on a \u00a3250mn loan guarantee from Sheikh Zayed bin Surror bin Mohammed Al Nahyan, a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family, according to the claim.<\/p>\n

This helped calm objections from Taqa \u2014 Abu Dhabi\u2019s state-owned electricity and water company, which was involved in a joint venture with RockRose \u2014 that Viaro would use RockRose\u2019s cash balances to pay for the deal, leaving the North Sea company unable to meet its liabilities, including the decommissioning costs of the joint ventures, the claim alleges.<\/p>\n

Subsequently, RockRose went on to loan approximately \u00a3202mn to Viaro to fund the deal, with the remainder of the \u00a3247mn purchase price being made up from the misappropriated funds, the claim alleges. This is denied by Mazzagatti. <\/p>\n

Taqa has since brought a separate claim in the High Court against Viaro and Mazzagatti, along with other defendants, alleging that RockRose declared an $84mn dividend shortly before selling an oilfield for $1 without the means to meet its liabilities. The defendants deny the claims in the Taqa lawsuit. There is yet to be a judgment.<\/p>\n

In response to API\u2019s claim, Mazzagatti and Dixit Dominus deny any misappropriation of funds and say the lawsuit is being orchestrated by a third party, Arshiya Jahanpour, a former close friend of Mazzagatti, who urged him to buy API on his behalf. Jahanpour then became frustrated by the Italian\u2019s decision to subsequently sell him only half of the trading company, selling the other 50 per cent to another friend, Nejla Baccouche, according to defence arguments.<\/p>\n

The defence states that it was Jahanpour, not Mazzagatti who had \u201csole control\u201d of API from around September 2018 onwards. Neither Mazzagatti nor Dixit Dominus \u201cis responsible for any unlawful payments\u201d, according to the defence. Instead, it argues that API is seeking to \u201c(wrongly) blame or ascribe liability to the Defendants for transfers that were either legitimate, or alternatively must have been a procurement of funds by Mr Jahanpour\u201d.<\/p>\n

The defence alleges that the various bank accounts opened by Mazzagatti were \u201copened by or at the request of Mr Jahanpour, and Mr Jahanpour controlled them at all material times [\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.] Mr Jahanpour was worried about having assets in his own name, including due to increased scrutiny because of his US citizenship.\u201d It adds that Mazzagatti trusted Jahanpour enough to allow him to use his name \u201cbut was not involved in the operation of the accounts\u201d.<\/p>\n

Jahanpour could not be reached for comment.<\/p>\n

A trial date is yet to be set.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The chief executive of a North Sea oil and gas group faked bank statements and forged board documents to steal at least \u20ac143.8mn, according to a London lawsuit filed by his former company and backer of an Iranian petrochemicals maker. The High Court claim is one of several legal battles around the world that have<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[206],"tags":[2560,2558,604,2559,1200,2561,1435,2557],"class_list":{"0":"post-7934","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-financial-crime","8":"tag-144mn","9":"tag-accused","10":"tag-chief","11":"tag-forgery","12":"tag-lawsuit","13":"tag-london","14":"tag-stealing","15":"tag-viaro"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}