Swiss Courts Freeze CCC Bank Account In Yemen Oilfield Dispute
This article appeared on the Dow Jones website on 9 March 2008
By Oliver Klaus of ZAWYA DOW JONES
DUBAI (Zawya Dow Jones)--Consolidated Contractors Co., a $4 billion Mideast construction firm that built Iraq's notorious Abu Ghuraib prison, had its Swiss assets frozen amid a $60 million Yemeni oilfield dispute filed against it in the U.K., legal sources say.
Swiss courts froze all accounts held by CCC's unit Consolidated Contractors International Co., or CCIC, with Bank Audi Suisse SA in Geneva and Arab Bank Switzerland in Zurich, according to a statement from the plaintiff's legal representatives.
The freezing of the bank accounts follows a U.K. High Court ruling on Dec. 21 that CCIC and CCC's oil and gas unit CCOG are in breach of an agreement signed with Palestinian entrepreneur Munib Masri in 1992 to share revenue from Yemen's Masila oilfield.
According to Masri's London legal representatives Simmons & Simmons, the U.K. court ruled that family-run CCC and its billionaire owners Said Khoury and Hasib Sabbagh must pay about $60 million allegedly owed to Mr. Masri.
In addition, the court ruled at the time that the CCC units have to disclose all assets worth more than $100,000 in the case brought by Masri, chairman of Palestinian Development & Investment Company, or Padico, a Nablus, West Bank-based holding company registered in Liberia.
Simmons & Simmons didn't disclose the size of the frozen Swiss assets in its statement, which was released March 7 through public relations company Byfield Consultancy in London.
Under the ruling, CCC, which had revenues in 2006 of more than $4 billion, was ordered to payall ongoing oil revenues from the Masila oil field, one of Yemen's largest, into a U.K. bank account under the court's control.
Simmons & Simmons allege that CCC, whose chairman and president Said Khoury ranks 962 on the Forbes 2008 rich list with an estimated net worth of $1.2 billion, has been trying to avoid complying with the court's orders.
Lawyers representing Khoury weren't immediately available for comment when contacted by Zawya Dow Jones March 6 and didn't return calls.
Sources close to the case say it was filed in the U.K. because CCIC has business activities there and under the original contract between Masri and CCC, Masri was resident in the U.K.
Said Khoury is an adviser to the board of Bank Audi, which is headquartered in Lebanon, while his son Wael Khoury is a director of one of the bank's affiliates in the U.S., Interaudi Bank, which is based in New York, according to the banks' Web sites.
The Masila field, which is at the heart of the dispute is located in Yemen's tribal Hadhramaut region. It first started producing crude oil in 1993, with output reaching as much as 130,000 barrels a day in 2005, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The concession, which at one point had reserves approaching 1 billion barrels of recoverable oil, is currently operated by Nexen Inc., formerly operating as Canadian Occidental Petroleum, and CCIC.
Nablus-born Masri, a former Jordanian cabinet minister, in November launched political group the Palestine Forum, which he intends to convert into a rival for Fatah and Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza, according to a report in Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
CCC's Web site says the company's roots stretch back to 1952 and is the Middle East's largest contractor in revenue terms, with 105,000 staff.
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