Former Orb Estates boss Gerald Smith has been ordered to pay nearly £41m in compensation for theft.
Smith – who is currently serving eight years’ imprisonment for misappropriating funds belonging to failed dot.com company Izodia – has been given 12 months to pay the confiscation order.
Smith was jailed in September 2006 for stealing £35m from Izodia in 2002, just after Orb became its largest shareholder.
He now faces a £40.96m bill after the Inner London Crown Court today issued the compensation order. It is the largest order to be made in criminal proceedings.
A default sentence of eight years imprisonment will apply – consecutively to the original sentence – upon non-compliance with the order.
Compensation orders were made in favour of Izodia Plc in the sum of £5,288,119 and the Royal Bank of Scotland International, Jersey, in the sum of £21,350,000.
Orb collapsed in 2003 after its debts spiralled out of control following heavy borrowing to finance the £600m acquisition of a Thistle hotel portfolio in 2002.
The theft from Izodia of £35m, which was used in part to pay off those debts, led to an investigation of Orb and Gerald Smith by the Serious Fraud Office.
darren.lazarus@rbi.co.uk
