Carter Fuck - Legal sharks infesting the Internet

In September Kate @ Kate a Blog posted a fascinating story about Mr Nadhmi Auchi نظمي أوجي. (see pic)
Which gave a brief introductory biography of this fascinating man.

Mr Auchi is the 7th richest man in Britain; having made his billionaire fortune in banking, pharmaceuticals, oil, hotels, aviation, real estate, telecommunications, etc. He has brokered deals for Italian frigates and Iraqi pipelines, oil-for-food, built grand hotels in London, Beruit, Kuwait. His assorted fortune is under the company General Mediterranean Holding.

NOTE - Past and present directors of General Mediterranean include ex UK Foreign Office minister Keith Vaz, former Liberal leader Lord Steel, former president of the European commission Jacques Santer and former Conservative chancellor Norman Lamont.

Accumulation of such wealth does not come without problems ......

In November 2003 Mr Auchi was given a 15-month suspended sentence and fined £1.4m by a French court for receiving illegal commissions which was contemporaneously reported by the Guradian on May 7th 2003.

Yesterday Mr Auchi explained to a court how his company, General Mediterranean Holdings, was paid more than 3bn pesetas in commission for buying the Spanish Ertoil refinery for the French oil giant in 1991.

Which ( to someone not familiar with this sort of business transaction) seems quite straighforward. Indeed it was, as he went on to explain to the court.

Sweating profusely in the heat of the packed courtroom at the Palais de Justice he confirmed that his company received the money and, more extraordinarily, that 1.4bn pesetas was paid back to Elf, or rather to the senior executives who had set up the deal.

Which is perhaps a little less straightforward ...

This massive retro-commission, more commonly known as a kickback, first found its way into the bank account of Alfred Sirven, then Elf's head of special operations, and was then distributed in chunks to various other executives, including the company's president, Loik le Flock-Prigent.

Both Sirven and Le Flock-Prigent have already received prison sentences for their roles in the Elf affair.

At which point Iraqi born Mr Auchi displayed a dgeree of Francophilia that was unexpected ... but no doubt welcome both in the banlieus of Paris but also the Quai D'orsay. Indeed readers of the French Wikipedia will be interested on their article on Kassem "Il fut la victime d'un attentat manqué à la mitraillette par deux jeunes révolutionnaires anonymes devenus célèbres: le dictateur déchu Saddam Hussein et le milliardaire anglo-irakien Nadhmi Auchi."

Constantly mopping his brow with his handkerchief, Auchi stated that he was told by Elf representatives that the deal would be "good for Elf and good for France".

Alas ! His strength of belief in the French nation was not matched by an adequate understanding of their business practices .. evidently unfamiliar to anyone brought up in the banking parlours of the Middle East renowned for their rectitude and probity see BCCC, Petra Bank / Mr Chalabi - another fascinating Iraqi banquiste etc.,.

Asked by the president of the court, Michel Desplan, whether he thought it strange that Elf would pay him more than 3bn pesetas in commission but that 1.4bn had to be paid back to the company, Mr Auchi said that he had been dealing with a French state company and so he assumed everything was above board.

... and so say all of us.

(Mr Auchi is appealing the verdict after a lengthy trial .)

Those who want a detailed history of this evidently credulous businessman could usefully consult an article that appeared at Corp watch just prior to the trial.

IRAQ: British tycoon in quiz over ties to Labour
by Martin Bright, Antony Barnett and Mark Hollingsworth, The Observer
April 6th, 2003

Or Guradian / Observer article The politics of sleaze by Nick Cohen Sunday November 16, 2003

Anyway as a result of Kate's posting she now tells us of a letter she has received by e-mail from the celebrated firm of Carter Fuck, which claims much scandalum magnatum about their client Mr Auchi . The letter which they claim is "Not for Publication" and is "Private & Confidential" claims inter alia about Kate's posting.. "it contains various false statements and assertions " the most amusing of which is that Kate posted a picture of Mr Saddam Hussein incorrectly attributed to be a portrait of their client.

It is well known throughout the world that Mr Hussein has been in custody for 3 years and is facing the shuffling off of his mortal coil at the hands of the US aggressor and their victor's laws. It might therefore seem unlikely that anyone is going to mistake Mr Auchi should he be approached in a Baghdad coffee shop to launder some grubby money, sell (or buy) an Italian destroyer or even invest in a mobile telephone company.

This entertaining letter goes on to say that Mr Auchi does not take kickbacks ( it is difficult to see how this fiction can be maintained when he evidently told the court in the Elf case he did not recognise a kickback when he paid one).

It maintains he has never laundered money, is not related to, know, have dealings with, ridden on the same bus, as Mr Hussein the brutal dictator, (overlooking it appears his well known and documented involvement with Mr Hussein in the attempt on President Kassem's life). Such is the concern (not to mention the vanity) of Mr Auchi he maintains that he does not even look like Mr Hussein - and looking at the pictures of them, any confusion would be the result of either bad lighting, or bad eyesight.

Consequently they seek (on behalf of their client) a published apology in terms and form to be agreed to inform readers of Kate's blog of the true position... Which considering he has been found guilty of paying massive kickbacks is a trifle rich. But then Carter Fuck have never been backward in making the most preposterous claims on behalf of their clients.

Finally they add as some sort of endorsement of this nonsense examples of such apologies from The Sunday Times and the Mail on Sunday.

My advice to Kate is to tell both Messrs Carter Fuck and Mr Auchi to Fuck off.

PS. This has NOTHING ... absolutely NOTHING to do with the arrest of Mr Auchi's daughter Luma Auchi, and MD of Regent-GM Laboratories Limited, arrested in the NHS drug fraud case involving up to £150 million excess costs to the NHS. She is one of 12 executive / Directors from UK drug firms who face fraud charges in allegations of £100m price-fixing of commonly used NHS drugs, evidence from insiders includes board minutes detailing agreements.

The 9 defendents appeared at Bow Street Magistrates' Court on 27 April, 2006 when the companies are also required to be represented.Regent-GM Laboratories Limited were not charged because the company is in liquidation. Regent -GM Laboratories Limited, which was wound up in 2004, was a UK subsidiary of Mr Auchi's Luxembourg based General Mediterranean business empire.BBC Online

To date UK firm Generics (£12m ) and India's Ranbaxy (£4.5m) were joined in April 2006 by US based Norton (part of IVAX) who paid a total of £13.5m compensation and all deny any liability.

Regent GM has a star studded board which included former Tory health minister Gerry Malone, who joined the board in 1999 and the fragrant Baroness Falkender, Harold Wilson's long-standing (very) private secretary, who sat on the board of Regent from 1996 to 2003.

It is not known if they were at all familiar or friendly with former Regent sales and marketing manager Bhupesh Patel who had been acting as a secret whistleblower, helping the NHS and later Serious Fraud Office with their investigations. Evidence provided by Mr Patel, who is said by the NHS to have been present at alleged cartel meetings, is believed to be central to the case that has been built against the nine executives so far charged.

To people interested in these matters it may be of interest that whilst Norton was not colluding on price fixing it was run by CE and Labour donor (at least £100K to Millbank and £10K to Frank Dobson's London Mayor campaign - Dobson is, of course, a former Secretary of State for Health who ordered NHS doctors to use generics wherever possible.) Isaac Kaye, and the chairman of Generics was Mr T Tabatznik who left the board in 1999, has also given Labour donations. There is absolutely no evidence whatever to suggest either Mr Kaye or Mr Tony Tabatznik were involved in price-fixing.

Mr T T is of course non-domiciled and therefore enjoys certain income tax benefits, his north London (St Johns Wood) mansion is owned by a Panamaniam company.... he is also a generous benefactor to the London Science Museum Darwin centre.Director of the Oxford Institute for Yiddish Studies