Australian sees Nakheel fraud verdict within weeks

An Australian businessman and former managing director of Nakheel’s Dubai Waterfront project said Tuesday he expects to know whether he will jailed in Dubai within weeks.

Matthew Joyce, who has a civil case pending against him in Australia by Queensland-based Sunland Group, said a verdict will be delivered by the Gulf emirate’s courts within seven weeks, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Joyce, who spent nine months in jail before being bailed, was charged in 2009 with fraud relating to state-owned Nakheel following an emirate-wide crackdown on corruption.

Joyce, along with fellow Australian Angus Reed, were accused by Sunland Group of duping the company into paying a $13m consultancy fee to release a plot in the Waterfront project.

The fee was allegedly paid to Reed’s Prudentia Investments Pty, a charge denied by the pair.

Reed has said that at no time did he or his company hold an enforceable right to land, and said Sunland was aware of that.

Reed, who is currently living in Australia, has been identified by UAE authorities as a “fugitive”, the newspaper reported.  

Joyce has successfully argued for Sunland’s civil case, which accuses him of misleading and deception conduct, to be heard in the Victorian Supreme Court prior to the Dubai judgment.

The collapse of Dubai’s real estate bubble in 2008 saw several executives jailed, following a year-long clampdown on corruption and fraud largely linked to state-backed companies.

London-born businessman Safi Qurashi, who paid $60m for an island in the shape of Great Britain on Nakheel’s The World, was told this month he must serve his full seven-year jail term after being found guilty of bouncing millions of dirhams worth of cheques by a Dubai Court.

A judge in Dubai’s Court of First Instance upheld the sentence following an appeal, quashing the hopes of the Qurashi family that he would be released.  

The family has lobbied the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to appeal to the Dubai government and request a review of Qurashi’s case.

The family last month held a protest outside the UAE Embassy in London in a bid to draw attention to the case and press for the British government’s intervention.

Sunland Group in October said it would exit its investment in the luxury Palazzo Versace hotel in Dubai, which it constructed under a joint partnership with UAE developer Enshaa.

In exchange, Enshaa said it would relinquish its stake in the Palazzo Versace Gold Coast, and Sunland would take full ownership of the project.

The Australian developer said in 2009 it planned to exit Dubai after completing its projects, after posting a full-year net loss of $145m.