Lancer and Abu Dhabi royal family settle ongoing court battle
Lancer Property Asset Management, the private firm that ran the UK estate of the Abu Dhabi royal family for more than a decade, has settled a long-running legal battle just weeks ahead of a high court showdown.
Lawyers at Eversheds, acting on behalf of the Abu Dhabi’s Berkeley Square Holdings, and RPC, acting for Lancer, said: “The parties can announce that their ongoing court disputes have now been resolved amicably through private negotiation. All the claims by the owners of the London property portfolio against Lancer and its directors, the counter claims by Lancer for outstanding fees and the individual counter claims against the current asset managers have been withdrawn as part of the resolution.”
Lancer and Berkeley Square Holdings have been embroiled in complex proceedings in court and at employment tribunal since 2018.
Lancer Property Asset Management, the private firm that ran the UK estate of the Abu Dhabi royal family for more than a decade, has settled a long-running legal battle just weeks ahead of a high court showdown.
Lawyers at Eversheds, acting on behalf of the Abu Dhabi’s Berkeley Square Holdings, and RPC, acting for Lancer, said: “The parties can announce that their ongoing court disputes have now been resolved amicably through private negotiation. All the claims by the owners of the London property portfolio against Lancer and its directors, the counter claims by Lancer for outstanding fees and the individual counter claims against the current asset managers have been withdrawn as part of the resolution.”
Lancer and Berkeley Square Holdings have been embroiled in complex proceedings in court and at employment tribunal since 2018.
The fighting broke out after Lancer was dis-instructed on the Abu Dhabi estate in 2017 and new business Astrea Asset Management brought in.
Initial arguments broke out over the transfer – or not – of several members of staff and grew to encompass unpaid fees, unfair dismissal, dishonesty and fraud.
Most recently the Court of Appeal had sided with Lancer in its bid to stop the Abu Dhabi royal family striking out key elements of Lancer’s defence in what was a multi-million pound litigation.
The Abu Dhabis were suing Lancer for “tens of millions of pounds” in damages, alleging dishonesty and fraud, with a trial that had been scheduled to begin in June this year.
The appeal concerned aspects of the defence put forward by Lancer and the scope of the “without prejudice” rule, the general effect of which is to render inadmissible all negotiations genuinely aimed at settlement.
The Abu Dhabis claimed that Mubarak Al Ahbabi and the defendants had conspired to inflate the fees that were payable to Lancer under the asset management agreement for the purpose of funding onward payments that Lancer made to companies owned by Al Ahbabi personally, principally a company called Becker.
Lancer had alleged that Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, emir of Abu Dhabi and president of the United Arab Emirates, approved the payments.
All parties denied any wrongdoing at all times throughout the case.
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