By Lucy Caulkett-
The High Court has rejected a claim against extradition by a Kazakhstani man over a fraud case. The judge said there was ‘no merit whatsoever’ in claims by the man accused over his part in a $6bn (£4.6bn) alleged fraud alongside his former banking executive father-in-law that returning to the UK for questioning would put him at risk of extradition.
Judge David Waksman said in his ruling that there was no risk that Ilyas Khrapunov would be extradited from his current base in Switzerland to either Kazakhstan or Russia. Khrapunov is the son-in-law of the former chief executive of BTA Bank Mukhtar Ablyazov. He is accused of conspiring with his father to remove funds from a previously granted freezing order.
Judge Waksman found Khrapunov liable for conspiring with Ablyazov in the fraud case. Khrapunov was ordered to pay more than $424m (£229m), with $75m interest on to
According to Hogan Lovells, which represented BTA Bank, the case is one of the biggest fraud cases to have ever come before the English courts.
Khrapunov had refused to attend court claiming he was frightened of the prospect of being extradited. Addressing those fears, Waksman wrote: ‘The truth of the matter is Khrapunov has the means and the ability to come here, if he wished, to object to this judgment…but he has not done anything of that kind. There is, therefore, no obstacle at all to my making the judgment in default as requested by the claimant.’
The rogue has been locked in a three year of battle of litigation in both the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court, but the outcome has been unfavourable to Khrapunov.
In March, the UK Supreme Court ruled that the English courts had jurisdiction to hear BTA’s claims. Khrapunov had argued that the English courts had no jurisdiction over him because he was domiciled in Switzerland.
The court made reference to the Lugano Convention, which allows a claim to be pursued in the jurisdiction ‘where the harmful event occurred or may occur’. The ruling stated that the agreement between Khrapunov and Ablyazov which were entered into in England, gave the English courts jurisdiction.
The legal proceedings in England consist of 11 claims filed by BTA Bank in the High Court seeking to recover the funds misappropriated by Ablyazov. The bank has previously secured judgments for more than US$4.5 billion and is in the process of seeking to enforce those judgments.