Tchenguiz lawyer confident the tycoons will bounce back
ONE of the Tchenguiz Brothers’ long-standing lawyers last night predicted the pair would bounce back from their travails at the hands of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) following their lengthy questioning by police officers on Wednesday.
Sarosh Zaiwalla, whose firm acted for them for three years until the end of last year, said: “The SFO has been brought in presumably at the request of the Icelandic government who wants to find out why and for what reasons Kaupthing Bank went bankrupt.
“The SFO’s investigation is not an assumption of guilt in any way. The brothers have been released without charge which suggests that the SFO may not have found evidence against them. In fact there exists a serious possibility that the Tchenguiz brothers could well succeed with their claim for misrepresentation against Kaupthing for their losses of US$1.6bn…..They will bounce back once again.”
Yesterday it emerged that law firm Osborne Clarke was acting for Robert’s group R20 in connection with the fraud case. The relatioship partner is Nick Simpson who worked for the brothers when he was at Olswang. “Nick has had a longstanding relationship with R20,” it says on the firm’s web-site.