UK court dismisses Chinese bank plea against Anil Ambani
NEWDELHI: UK high court has dismissed an application filed by Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) Ltd for a summary judgement in its claims of $680 million against Anil Ambani, chairman of Reliance Communications Ltd (RCom).
The hearing in the matter took place on November 7 and the conditional dismissal order for the “summary judgement application of Chinese banks against Anil Ambani” was issued on Monday. A summary judgment request is a litigant’s effort to bring early end to a lawsuit claiming that other party does not have a case at all. The bank had moved the court in November against Anil Ambani for defaulting on loans of $680 million to RCom.
UK high court justice Waksman in the order said, “The application for summary judgment itself, however, is dismissed.” After the dismissal of the summary judgement application, the case will now go to trial.
A spokesperson of Anil Ambani said the UK high court has dismissed “summary judgement application of Chinese banks against Anil Ambani” in which the “Chinese banks had claimed $680 million from Mr Ambani against Chinese banks’ corporate loans to RCom”.
ICBC claim related to loan given to RCom in 2012 to enable the telecom company meet its obligations under certain foreign currency convertible bonds that was due to mature on March 1, 2012. ICBC welcomed the grant of a “conditional order against” Ambani. “We welcome the grant of a conditional order against Mr Ambani as we have always said his defence is not credible. This is a straightforward debt claim to recover outstanding loans made to RCom in good faith and secured by a binding personal guarantee given by Mr Ambani. We now look forward to the swift resolution of the case at trial.”