New York : In a relief to Sahara, a US court has rejected a plea seeking to attach the Indian group’s prized Plaza and Dream Downtown hotels here.
Hong Kong-based JTS Trading had approached the court seeking the attachment as part of its $ 350-million lawsuit against UAE-based Trinity White City Ventures, Sahara group and Swiss banking giant UBS over a deal that went sour.
While hearings will continue on the lawsuit, the Supreme Court of the State of New York has said that “the application of plaintiff JTS Trading Ltd for a pre-judgement order of attachment is denied”. “We welcome the Hon’ble Supreme Court’s decision which understood our claims in the pious light of justice and protected us from becoming a victim of unscrupulous litigation which aimed at falsely and unfairly dragging us into a private dispute between two parties who have had a falling out,” a Sahara group spokesperson said in a statement, reports PTI. Sahara, along with the two others, was dragged into the lawsuit filed by JTS Trading, which claims that it had proposed to partner Trinity and arrange loans from UBS to acquire Sahara’s three overseas hotels – Grosvenor House in London and the two in the US. JTS has alleged that Trinity cut it off from the estimated $ 1.5 billion deal for direct negotiations with Sahara.
It accused Sahara and UBS of having “aided and abetted” Trinity in breaching its “fiduciary duties” under their agreement. JTS also filed an application before the court seeking a ‘pre-judgement order of attachment’ of Sahara group’s interest in the two hotels in the US.
