The international financial crackdown on leaders of Arab countries where protests flared this spring continues to intensify.
More Business news: Editor's pick of today's headlines
Last Updated: May 04, 2011
Swiss freeze $960m of assets belonging to North African dictators
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Adbic close to disclosing aluminium project
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The US last Friday imposed asset freezes on Maher al Assad, the brother of the Syrian president Bashar al Assad, and Atif Najib, his cousin. The US also imposed new sanctions on the country's general intelligence directorate and Ali Mamluk, who heads the agency. They are accused of overseeing military units that violently put down protests, resulting in the deaths of at least 400 people.
The sanctions are only the most recent in a growing list of asset freezes and other financial pressure brought to bear against embattled and deposed Arab leaders including Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, the former Tunisian president, Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted as Egypt's president in February, and Muammar Qaddafi, Libya's leader.
Lawyers and investigators have made progress finding and freezing dictators' assets after the UN joined the EU and dozens of individual countries in imposing sanctions against them this year. Swiss authorities yesterday announced they had put the brakes on almost US$1 billion (Dh3.67bn) of deposits held in the country's banks by Mr Mubarak, Col Qaddafi and Mr Ben Ali.
But asset tracing and recovery experts say getting back money squirrelled away by fallen Arab dictators is likely to take years, if not decades. With all the resources of their governments behind them, they say, the former leaders hired skilled lawyers and other highly paid advisers to hide their ill-gotten gains.
"Dictators may be dictators, but they're still heads of sovereign governments," said Richard Blaksley, a partner at GPW, a corporate investigation company based in London. "If you're in charge of a country's banks, you can do some clever stuff."
To illustrate their difficulties, investigators hark back to cases such as that of the late Sani Abacha, who presided over a corrupt Nigerian regime between 1993 and 1998. After Abacha's death in 1998, the country's new government began an investigation into corruption estimated to have robbed the country of about $8bn. Today, some $2bn of those assets have been frozen and only $1.2bn returned.
Enrico Monfrini, a Swiss lawyer who has led the charge to recover Abacha assets since 1999, said in a report on the case two years ago political co-operation, civil lawsuits and criminal complaints - the main tools at asset-recovery experts' disposal - had many faults.
"The main weakness of mutual assistance in penal matters as a tool for asset tracing and recovery is its slowness," he wrote in a brief published by the Basel Institute on Governance. "Even in the most co-operative jurisdictions, it usually takes at least one year until the documentary evidence relating to transfers of proceeds of crimes is transmitted to the requesting authority. In most cases, it is then too late to trace the assets to other jurisdictions in time to freeze them."
Getting the money back requires close co-operation between international judicial, legal, political and law enforcement bodies - a complex network of people who rarely work together. When countries are in states of transition, as in Tunisia and Egypt, repatriating stolen assets comes with the added challenge of not knowing exactly on whose behalf lawyers and governments are acting in returning the money. Then there is the ambiguity that sometimes arises about whether pools of assets are personally controlled by dictators or by their governments, an uncertainty that can throw up further legal obstacles.
"We hate the person who invented the term 'asset search', because it sounds so easy to be successful at," Mr Blaksley said. "It's deeply complex and that's why it takes a long time."
afitch@thenational.ae
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, Leon.
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
The%20specs
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READ MORE ABOUT CORONAVIRUS
Company profile
Company name: Suraasa
Started: 2018
Founders: Rishabh Khanna, Ankit Khanna and Sahil Makker
Based: India, UAE and the UK
Industry: EdTech
Initial investment: More than $200,000 in seed funding
Company profile
Name: Thndr
Started: October 2020
Founders: Ahmad Hammouda and Seif Amr
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: FinTech
Initial investment: pre-seed of $800,000
Funding stage: series A; $20 million
Investors: Tiger Global, Beco Capital, Prosus Ventures, Y Combinator, Global Ventures, Abdul Latif Jameel, Endure Capital, 4DX Ventures, Plus VC, Rabacap and MSA Capital
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Company%20Profile
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Tips for job-seekers
- Do not submit your application through the Easy Apply button on LinkedIn. Employers receive between 600 and 800 replies for each job advert on the platform. If you are the right fit for a job, connect to a relevant person in the company on LinkedIn and send them a direct message.
- Make sure you are an exact fit for the job advertised. If you are an HR manager with five years’ experience in retail and the job requires a similar candidate with five years’ experience in consumer, you should apply. But if you have no experience in HR, do not apply for the job.
David Mackenzie, founder of recruitment agency Mackenzie Jones Middle East
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
Specs
Engine: Electric motor generating 54.2kWh (Cooper SE and Aceman SE), 64.6kW (Countryman All4 SE)
Power: 218hp (Cooper and Aceman), 313hp (Countryman)
Torque: 330Nm (Cooper and Aceman), 494Nm (Countryman)
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh158,000 (Cooper), Dh168,000 (Aceman), Dh190,000 (Countryman)
Match info:
Manchester City 2
Sterling (8'), Walker (52')
Newcastle United 1
Yedlin (30')
Ticket prices
- Golden circle - Dh995
- Floor Standing - Dh495
- Lower Bowl Platinum - Dh95
- Lower Bowl premium - Dh795
- Lower Bowl Plus - Dh695
- Lower Bowl Standard- Dh595
- Upper Bowl Premium - Dh395
- Upper Bowl standard - Dh295
