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Sanjay Shah

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For the former Kenyan national, see History of British nationality law § British Nationals with no other citizenship.

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Sanjay Shah
CitizenshipBritish
OccupationTrader

Sanjay Shah is a Dubai-based British businessman. He founded Solo Capital, a hedge fund firm[1] which closed in 2016,[2] and Autism Rocks, a charitable organization that raises awareness for autism.[3]

Shah is a prime suspect in a case regarding the Danish Government being allegedly defrauded of 12.7 billion DKK for (1.65 billion euros) between 2012 and 2015,[4] part of the CumEx-Files involving multiple European nations and involves a number of the world's largest banks such as Barclays, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, BNP Paribas, Banco Santander, Macquarie Bank and Deutsche Bank.[5] Shah has admitted his company legally enabled clients to legitimately reclaim around DKK 8 billion from the Ministry of Taxation.[6] He claimed innocence, as the trade was legal and claimed that he was only using legal tax loopholes, where dividend income is taxed differently in various jurisdictions.[7][8]

Career

Shah worked as a banker for Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and Rabobank "over a period of almost 20 years and – after finding himself unemployed in 2008 – set up his own investment management, brokerage and principal trading business".[9] He founded the hedge fund firm Solo Capital in London,[1] which employed "more than 100 financial experts across offices in London and Dubai".[9] Shah was investigated in regards to tax fraud and Solo Capital closed in 2016,[2] amid the investigation by Danish authorities,[2] while his London home and offices were raided by the British National Crime Agency, and Varengold Bank (co-owned by Shah) was raided by German authorities.[10][11]

Danish dividend tax fraud charges

In 2010, in an audit report, the Danish Ministry of Taxation was found to have ignored warnings on multiple occasions of a legal tax loophole concerning dividend tax.[12] This was two years before Sanjay Shah's company Solo Capital enabled clients to be paid more than 8 billions of DKK in tax refunds.[13] In June 2018, Denmark's Ministry of Taxation filed a civil claim in the UK High Court of Justice, claiming it had been the victim of fraud, conspiracy, dishonesty and unjust enrichment.[14]

Since 2015, Shah has been the prime suspect in a case regarding the Danish Government being allegedly defrauded of 12.7 billion DKK (1.65 billion euros) which was exposed in the CumEx-Files.[1][15][16] Shah was investigated in regards to the case in 2015.[17] The alleged tax fraud took place between 2012 and 2015[18] and is the largest in the history of Denmark.[10] Shah is also the prime suspect in similar alleged tax fraud cases involving more than 200 millawikifiedin Belgium and 65,000 euros (580,000 NOK) in Norway respectively.[19][20][21][22] An additional 300 million euros in Belgium and 40 million euros (350 million NOK) in Norway were only stopped, because of warnings from the Danish authorities.[19][20][21][22] In addition, he is being investigated since 2016 by Germany and the UK via Eurojust, and by the US Treasury Department, as it is suspected that some of the money were funneled through US pension funds.[15][21][23]

As of December 2016, about 300 million euros had been seized by the Danish police in cooperation with foreign police forces.[24]

In 2017, two suspected co-conspirators were also charged by the Danish authorities.[25]

In September 2018, a High Court of Justice judge in London entered a $1.3 billion default judgment against two UK companies, Solo Capital Limited and Elysium Global (UK) Limited, which were no longer in Shah's control, at the behest of the Danish tax agency SKAT. The claims against these companies were not defended, hence the default judgment. In the same month, finans.dk, a subsidiary of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, reported that assets in Elysium Global and Elysium Properties, two of Shah's companies, had been frozen.[26] and that Danish authorities have filed cases against him in the Dubai International Financial Centre Courts as well as the Commercial Court in London.[26]

In 2018, Britain, Germany and the United Arab Emirates had frozen, but not confiscated $660 million in assets belonging to Shah.[27]

In May 2019, a number of American pension funds agreed to return 1.6 billion DKK (239 million USD) in a related tax-fraud case.[28] In September 2019, German North Channel Bank accepted a fine of 110 million DKK for its involvement in a related tax fraud scheme.[29][30] Shah remains the main suspect in the main tax fraud case.[29]

In September 2019, Danish tax authorities reported that a ruling in Dubai against a 'central player' in the tax fraud case provides access to 9 million documents, of which 3.5 million had already been transferred.[31] Shah's spokesman, Jack Irvine, has confirmed that these documents came from Shah.[31] As of September 2019, the total number of Danish indictments against persons and companies involved in the tax fraud scheme has risen to 476 with projected legal costs of 2.4 billion Danish kroner.[31] In May 2020, the Tax Minister Morten Bodskov announced that the fees paid to lawyers was USD350 million, and that 250 new employees had been added to the Tax Office to address massive failures in control.[32]

In September 2019, the authorities have so far found no evidence of fraud in the UK, Germany or Denmark.[33]

In November 2019, British and Danish authorities reached an agreement that the main prosecution against Shah should take place in a Danish court of law, and both countries support his extradition from Dubai to Denmark.[34]

Extradition of a suspect from the United Arab Emirates has been described by a Danish expert as 'almost impossible' due to reciprocity as UAE implements death sentence for certain crimes and Denmark can't do this due to human rights concerns.[21][35]

As of 2019, Shah has denied any wrongdoing.[2] In papers lodged in London's High Court as part of a civil case brought by the Danish tax authority SKAT, Shah's lawyers rejected the allegations against him.[36]

The Danish Prosecutor interrogated Shah in Abu Dhabi over three days in a voluntary interview in September 2019.[37]

On 12 August 2020, the Dubai Court dismissed the Danish government's claim that it had been defrauded by Sanjay Shah of £1.5 billion (Dh7.2 bn), due to lack of evidence.[38]

In January 2021, Danish prosecutors charged Shah with fraudulently reclaiming $1.6 billion in dividend tax.[39] Prosecutors are seeking a 12 year sentence due to the severity of case.[39]

Personal life

Shah is married and has 3 children. In 2009, he moved to Dubai "after falling in love with the city".[9] His youngest son, Nikhil,[40] was diagnosed with autism in 2011.[9] After working with therapists and medical experts for 3 years, he decided to raise awareness about autism and in 2014 founded Autism Rocks in 2014.[41] Autism Rocks conducts music gigs worldwide to raise funds for charity and to create awareness about autism.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Strasburg, Jenny; Duxbury, Charles (4 November 2015). "Danish Tax Probe Targets Small London Hedge Fund, Other Firms". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 30 September 2016.
  2. ^ a b c d "Troubled hedge fund Solo Capital shuts its doors". The Telegraph. 16 July 2016.
  3. ^ Lynskey, Dorian (3 February 2015). "Prince review – 'What we're going to do right now is play 14 hits in a row!'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 30 September 2016.
  4. ^ Hyltoft, Vibe (16 August 2019). "Britisk whistleblower afslørede dansk udbyttesvindel". Berlingske Tidende.
  5. ^ "Netværk af finansfolk og storbanker har plyndret Danmark og store dele af Europa for milliarder". DR (in Danish). 18 October 2018. Retrieved 14 September 2020.
  6. ^ "Milliarder fossede ud af statskassen: Ny model for refusion af udbytteskat klar". DR (in Danish). 18 May 2020. Retrieved 14 September 2020.
  7. ^ "Denmark Confiscates Indian-Origin Tycoon's London Property Over Tax Fraud". NDTV.com. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
  8. ^ "Subscribe to read | Financial Times". Financial Times. Retrieved 9 May 2020. {{cite news}}: Cite uses generic title (help)
  9. ^ a b c d "In aid of autism". fridaymagazine.ae. Retrieved 30 September 2016.
  10. ^ a b "Uden for kontrol: Svindelmistænkte købte egen bank i august ("Fraud suspect bought his own bank in August")". DR News. 5 November 2015.
  11. ^ "Solo's silence is anything but golden". Financial Times. 4 November 2015.
  12. ^ "Danes Failed to Heed Cum-Ex Warnings Before Hedge Fund Trades". news.bloombergtax.com. Retrieved 14 September 2020.
  13. ^ Mathiason, Margot Gibbs and Nick. "British Financier Under Investigation for Tax Fraud Owned $56 Million in Dubai Properties". OCCRP. Retrieved 14 September 2020.
  14. ^ "Denmark Can 'Draw Line' On Searches in Tax Fraud Case - Law360". law360.com. Retrieved 14 September 2020.
  15. ^ a b "Politi i fire lande jagter Sanjay Shah ("Police in four countries are pursuing Sanjay Shah")". DR News. 11 December 2016.
  16. ^ "Ny opgørelse fra Skat: Vi er blevet snydt for 12,3 milliarder ("New review from the tax authorities: We were defrauded of 12.3 billion kroner")". TV2 News. 23 August 2016.
  17. ^ "Hedge fund boss in £1bn tax fraud inquiry". The Times. 15 April 2016.
  18. ^ "Svindelmistænkt har netværk af selskaber i alle afkroge af verden ("Suspect in fraud has web of companies throughout the world")". Berlingske Business. 27 November 2015.
  19. ^ a b "Skatteskandalen vokser: Belgien og Norge ramt af samme svindel som Danmark ("Tax case expands: Belgium and Norway hit by same fraud as Denmark")". DR News. 11 December 2016.
  20. ^ a b "Danmark er ikke alene om at blive fusket for milliarder ("Denmark not alone in being cheated for billions")". finans.dk. 11 December 2016.
  21. ^ a b c d "Der große Coup: Der milliardenschwere Steuerschwindel des Shah ("The big coup: The billion tax fraud by Shah")" (in German). Focus. 30 May 2017.
  22. ^ a b "Skatteetaten avslørte svindel for 350 millioner kroner ("Norwegian Tax Administration reveal fraud for 350 million kroner")" (in Norwegian). ABC Nyheter. 2 January 2017.
  23. ^ "US pension funds involved in billion kroner SKAT fraud". The Copenhagen Post. 9 December 2016.
  24. ^ "Tysk politi mistænker Sanjay Shah for hvidvask i dansk milliardsag ("German police suspect Sanjay Shah laundered money in Danish billion-case")". DR News. 12 December 2016.
  25. ^ "Politiet sigter to for svindel i sag om 12 milliarder ("Police charge two with fraud in 12 billion case")". TV2 News. 10 July 2017.
  26. ^ a b Advokater: Svindelmistænkte Sanjay Shah er ved at løbe tør for penge, finans.dk, 5 September 2018.
  27. ^ Where in the World Is Denmark's $2 Billion? by David Segal, 5 October 2018, The New York Times
  28. ^ U.S. Funds Agree to Pay Denmark $239 Million in Tax Fraud Case by Christian Weinberg, 29 May 2019, Bloombergtax
  29. ^ a b Bank erkender bedrageri mod Danmark, DR News, 24 September 2019.
  30. ^ Denmark fines German bank $16 million in dividend tax scam, Reuters, 23 September 2019
  31. ^ a b c Danmark har fået udleveret millioner af dokumenter om svindelmistænkte Sanjay Shah DR, 16 September 2019
  32. ^ "After $350 Million Lawyers' Bill, Denmark Steps Up Cum-Ex Chase". news.bloombergtax.com. Retrieved 14 September 2020.
  33. ^ Willmroth, Jan. "Schurken mit eigener Bank". Süddeutsche.de (in German). Retrieved 14 September 2020.
  34. ^ Udbytteskandalen: Shah skal retsforfølges i Danmark, DR News, 15 November 2019.
  35. ^ "Ekspert: Udlevering af mistænkt fra Dubai er næsten umulig ("Expert: Extradition from Dubai is almost impossible")". DR News. 27 November 2015.
  36. ^ Dubai resident fights Denmark over £1.5 bn tax fraud allegations 12 June 2019 The National (Abu Dhabi)
  37. ^ "Afsløring: Først efter fire år har politiet afhørt den mistænkte hovedmand i udbyttesag". Politiken (in Danish). 12 December 2019. Retrieved 14 September 2020.
  38. ^ Nick Webster (18 August 2020). "Dubai court dismisses Dh7.2bn tax fraud claims against Sanjay Shah". The National.
  39. ^ a b "Tiltale: To briter svindlede Danmark for mere end ni milliarder kroner". www.dr.dk. Retrieved 7 January 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  40. ^ "Sanjay Shah's tips to make schooling easier for children with autism". Autism Hub. 3 September 2016. Archived from the original on 3 October 2016. Retrieved 30 September 2016.
  41. ^ "AUTISM ROCKS: Raising 'Awareness through Music' around the World. VELVET Magazine". 7 May 2015. Retrieved 30 September 2016.
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