Sanjay Shah, founder of hedge fund Solo Capital Partners, has failed in a last-ditch attempt at the Supreme Court in London to halt a £1.44bn UK trial over Cum-Ex dividend trades, according to a report by Bloomberg.
A claim by Shah’s lawyers that the civil case brought by the Danish tax agency Skatteforvaltningen (Skat) over a trading strategy that siphoned off billions of government revenue, couldn’t be heard in London because matters of foreign tax law can’t be ruled on in the UK, was rejected by the court.
In a ruling handed down on Wednesday, Judge David Lloyd Jones said: “The applications for refunds were all based on a lie that the applicants had paid tax in the first place which, on the respondent’s pleaded case, they had not”.
The decision overturned a ruling by a lower court in favour of Shah, and the trial, which involves scores of other traders, is now set to take start in April and last one year.
Dozens of bankers, traders and lawyers have been charged in Denmark and Germany over the use of Cum-Ex trades to obtain millions of euros worth of duplicate tax refunds.
Shah is currently in a Dubai waiting to be extradited from the United Arab Emirates to Denmark, with his criminal trial there on hold until extradition is organised. Shah, who also faces a trial in Germany, has consistently maintained his innocence.
