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Bank statements confirm fake invoice money was paid to David Haigh

Judge backs GFH Capital at Dubai hearing

1 st October 2014 . GFH Capital has sought to litigate its case against Mr Haigh in the courts,

and has made only very few comments to the media about those proceedings. However, inrecent weeks Mr Haigh has apparently decided to mount a campaign in the press and onTwitter misrepresenting what is happening in the case. It is time the record was set straight.

Following successful applications made by GFH Capital to the DIFC and English Courts, bankstatements for accounts into which payments for fake invoices were transmitted have nowbeen made available, along with sworn witness statements by compliance officers from twobanks. Mr Haigh had previously told the courts in Dubai and England that he could notrecall whether these accounts belonged to him and sought to oppose those applicationsand the release of these statements to GFH Capital. The witness statements confirm that

two accounts with the Co-operative Bank in Manchester are held in Mr Haighs name and a naccount with NatWest Bank in Putney is held in the name of Mr Rafael Utiyama, who is afriend of Mr Haigh. All three accounts show the inward transfers of money from GFHCapital in payment of the fraudulent invoices that were referred to in GFH Capitals Statement of Claim. These statements therefore remove any doubt that Mr Haigh was inreceipt of these funds. The Co-op statements show that those accounts alone received inthe region of 1.9 million in more than 50 separate transfers between January andDecember 2013.

Additionally the transcript of a hearing at the DIFC Court between GFH Capital and David

Haigh, the former Managing Director of Leeds United Football Club that took place on 15September 2014 in Dubai before Justice Sir David Steel (a former Judge of the UK HighCourts on the Queens Bench Division) has also now been released. He is the second formerUK High Court judge to be presiding over the case. The first was Justice Sir John Chadwick,who granted a worldwide freezing order against the assets of Mr. Haigh. Further freezingorders against Mr Haighs assets were obtained by GFH Capital in the English CommercialCourt and the Royal Court of Guernsey.

Mr Haigh and his team have made repeated claims in the media that he has been deniedthe most basic amenities of life during his period of detention by the Dubai authorities,

asserting that his living conditions have made it impossible for him to concentrate andeffectively defend himself. However, a hearing in the DIFC Court on 15 September beforeMr Justice Sir David Steel revealed a very different story. Among the revelations were:

One of the frequent complaints made by Mr Haigh is that he has no access to funds.At the hearing he was asking for the existing allowance agreed by GFH Capital of$2,050 a week to be more than doubled to $5,000 per week and to be availablewhile in custody. It also was revealed that he claims current monthly outgoings inthe United Kingdom of some 26,000 per month, including such items as 1,000 amonth for gym membership, 1,000 on telephone calls and 3,000 a month to a

partner, despite his being in custody in Dubai.

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Mr Haigh has frequently claimed that he is unable to communicate by telephone toinstruct his legal team. However, he claims to spend in excess of $500 a week onphone calls from the detention centre. This led the judge to comment, Even if hehad his own personal landline there, it stretches the imagination somewhat that he

would incur $500 worth of calls to legal representatives in Dubai Another frequent complaint is about the prison diet he is forced to endure. Hisdefence team revealed that he or his representatives wished to spend another $500a week having food, water and toiletries sent in. This led the judge to ask, But whenyou say, food, I mean, he is buying groceries or is he sending out to La PetiteMaison? He then added , Well, I hope that does not sound too flippant but there isa considerable difference between buying food, you know, in tins and so on if youare going to eat and we do not spend that sort of money on our groceries

Despite his claims that it was difficult to receive medical treatment, he has hadaccess to an on-site doctor and has been permitted trips from his cell to receiveprivate, specialist outside medical treatment. In addition, he claimed to be spending$500 per week on medicines in the form of protein, vitamins and supplements.

The judge found it strange that Mr Haigh was able to visit doctors yet he isapparently barred from coming to court, which seems to be rather moreimportant. He went on [i]t might have been of some interest to the court if therewere some evidence, particularly documentary evidence, in support of theproposition that a request was made for him to come here and it was refused, but arequest to attend on a doctor is allowed. It is strange, is it not?

In answer to his claims that he has no funds to pay his legal team, it was revealed

that GFH Capital have agreed that 200,000, in which the judge agreed they hadshown a good arguable proprietary interest, be held on account by Mr Haighslawyers to pay his legal costs. It was said at the hearing that this sum had alreadybeen expended on fees, and other expenses.

Contrary to his frequent complaint to the media about lack of access to reading andwriting materials and his inability to read and concentrate, Mr Haigh soughtpermission to spend nearly 120 a week on books and other reading materials. Healso said that he spends AED 250 (c. 50) a week on having laundry sent out andwants the equivalent of $150 a week to purchase new clothes.

Commenting on the financial disclosures, Justice Sir David Steel said, I confess I am whollyunpersuaded that the existing allowance of $2,050 per week is inappropriate, certainlywhile Mr Haigh is in custody. He also stated, on the subject of Mr Haigh s claimed existingliving expenses, that, I approach that list with a bit of a long spoon. In his judgment he saidof Mr Haighs asserted living expenses that they stretche d the imagination almost tobreaking point. Even after all of these questions, M r Haigh is permitted to spend up to$500 per week on his living expenses while he is detained.

Other findings included the judge commenting on the worldwide freezing order that wasgranted at an earlier hearing. He said that There is no application [by Mr Haigh] to set

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aside that freezing order, either here or in London where a similar order has been made by a judge of the commercial court.

A frequent complaint by Mr Haigh is that he has not had a bail hearing in the criminalproceedings against him . It emerged at the hearing that in fact he has been offered bail

but has not posted an appropriate bond. This bond had been set at AED 15 million, thevalue of the fraud of which he was first accused.

To the fact that Mr Haigh has to date submitted no defence against the civil claims that havebeen levelled against him, t he judge commented I confess that Mr Haigh, despite thedifficulties in communication with his solicitor, has taken a considerable time to say verylittle about his circumstance, let alone about the complaints that are being made againsthim.

Before summarising the defence Mr Haigh intends to put forward, Robert Lawson QC, his

barrister, admitted that, over time the answer that the Defendant [Mr Haigh] has given tothe allegations against him has changed and I have to accept that if one looks through thecorrespondence there is an element in truth in that.

The PwC report which Mr Haigh claimed in a statement issued last week i s unequivocal about his innocence was not relied on in court by Mr Haighs legal team and was describedin court as merely a list of items and exercises which PwC suggests that somebody, who istasked with conducting the forensic investigation into a fraud from start to finish andpresenting the report, might be expected to carry out. It is important to note that PwCs report was, in any event, prepared six weeks ago and without access to the bank statements

from the Co-Operative and NatWest banks and is expressly caveated to that effect.At the close of the hearing there was an application for costs. The defendant, Mr Haigh, wasordered to pay 75% of the claimants, GFH Capitals, costs.

Note:

Mr Haigh is being detained by the police in Dubai whilst under investigation forembezzlement of at least 4million from his then employer, GFH Capital, by fabricatingapproaching 100 false invoices, and arranging payment into at least four different bankaccounts in Dubai, London and Manchester. This is a criminal case being pursued by the

Dubai authorities that is separate to the case being heard at the DIFC Court, which is a civilclaim being brought by GFH Capital for the return of that money.

Attachments:

Transcript of CFI 020/2014 GFH Capital Limited v David Lawrence Haigh on 15 September2014