AHAB Files Evidentiary Response to TIBC Administrator

MANAMA, Bahrain, Sept. 9, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Today at a court hearing in Bahrain, Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi and Brothers ("AHAB") submitted evidence refuting the legal case filed last year by the Administrators of The International Banking Corporation ("TIBC").  The claim, pending in the Bahrain Chamber for Dispute Resolution (case no. 11/2014), asserts that TIBC lost billions of dollars when AHAB induced it to make loans to false customers in Saudi Arabia.  AHAB denies liability for the claim.

TIBC was established in 2003, with AHAB recorded as its majority shareholder.  The bank collapsed in 2009, and two independent investigations have concluded that it was established and operated without AHAB's authorization, based on false and forged documents.   AHAB's submission today corroborates the findings of these prior investigations and it directly refutes the case filed by the TIBC Administrator.  The AHAB submission includes substantial evidence demonstrating that TIBC management not only knew the loan customers were false, but also that it actively helped create and maintain the false loan customer scheme in order to illegally route money to Saudi Arabia for the benefit of co-conspirators.       

The evidence specifically shows that TIBC employees knowingly fabricated loan applications, referral letters, and financial statements of the false customers, and worked directly with co-conspirators in Saudi Arabia to conceal the true nature of the scheme from the bank's auditors.  AHAB's submission also proves the funds did not benefit AHAB, but instead went to the benefit of co-conspirators of TIBC in Saudi Arabia. 

TIBC was placed into administration by the Central Bank of Bahrain in 2009.  The CBB has filed criminal charges against management and certain employees of the bank.  These charges remain pending.

AHAB is in the process of seeking to negotiate the final terms of a settlement with claimants, but it has refused to recognize claims of co-conspirators to the fraud.  AHAB believes that a negotiated settlement is the way to unlock the stalemate after six years of expensive litigation and the best way to return money to the victims of the coordinated fraud involving TIBC, Awal Bank, and the Saad Group companies based in the Cayman Islands.