Reliance Group Chairman and former billionaire Anil Ambani has been ordered by a London judge Nigel Teare to pay more than $700 million to three Chinese banks over an issue of defaulted loans, a report by Bloomberg said.
The Chinese banks had sought summary judgment against Ambani over an alleged breach of a personal guarantee on a debt refinancing loan of around $925 million in February 2012.
Ambani now has 21 days to make the payment.
Reliance Communications had filed for bankruptcy in 2019.
According to the report, Ambani had contested having made a personal guarantee but the summary judgment ruling now will mean that a full trial will not take place.
However, the ruling will not have any effect on other Reliance group operations, Bloomberg reported, quoting a spokesperson for Ambani.
The spokesperson also said that the alleged guarantee had never been signed by Ambani and that the former billionaire had also not “authorised anyone to execute any guarantee on his behalf.”
Net Worth Zero, Claims Ambani
In February 2020, a UK court had directed Reliance Group chairman Anil Ambani to pay $100 million towards a conditional order granted to the three Chinese banks.
In what was in effect a deposit to be paid into court pending a full trial in the case, Judge David Waksman had set a six-week timeline for such a payment to be made as he concluded that he did not accept Ambani's defence that his net worth was nearly zero or that his family would not step in to assist him when “push came to shove”.
Ambani’s legal team had sought to establish that his net worth is zero once his liabilities were taken into account.
“I do not hold any meaningful assets which can be liquidated for the purposes of these proceedings,” he said in February, according to Bloomberg.
(With inputs from Bloomberg.)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)