Dr No casino in battle over £10m
A CASINO featured in the James Bond film Dr No has taken a Chinese tycoon to court to recover £10million after cheques he cashed bounced.
Yu Songbo spent £19million on gambling chips in just five days at the exclusive Les Ambassadeurs Club in London’s Park Lane, it was revealed yesterday.
The casino, which also featured in the Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night, wants the High Court to force Yu Songbo to repay an outstanding debt of £10million.
It asked for a worldwide freezing order on his assets while it recovered the money.
Mr Yu, a property developer from Zhoushan in the east of China, bought Grade I-listed Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire and was once said to be one of the 150 richest people in China. His family had an estimated fortune of £1billion in 2014 when he became a member at Les Ambassadeurs.
The High Court heard he cashed cheques for £19million at the casino between April 27 and May 1 in 2018 to buy gambling chips.
In a ruling yesterday, the court said all the cheques were ‘subsequently dishonoured’. After the casino served legal proceedings on him through the Chinese messaging app WeChat, he reduced the debt to £6.54million.
But his payments stopped in December 2019, the court was told.
The casino’s lawyers said it heard nothing more apart from a Lunar New Year greeting a month later.
A judge ruled it was owed £10million, including its legal costs and interest, but rejected its application for a global freezing order, saying there was insufficient evidence that Mr Yu would hide his assets to avoid repaying the debt.
Yesterday, the Court of Appeal also rejected the order. A panel of three Appeal Court judges said there was ‘undoubtedly evidence that Mr Yu was disinclined to pay his gambling debts voluntarily’.
But they added: ‘There was no evidence that Mr Yu had ever taken any steps to put his assets out of the reach of creditors.’
Les Ambassadeurs previously took legal action against Sheikh Salah Hamdan Albluewi, chairman of a Saudi Arabian construction and property empire, over claims he reneged on a £2million debt by sending 17 cheques that bounced.
A global freezing order imposed on his assets was lifted last year.