Two property investors are embroiled in a high court dispute with a woman they say claimed to be a Saudi princess and tricked them into handing over the deeds of seven London properties worth millions.
Amanda Clutterbuck and her partner Ian Paton are suing Sarah al Moudi for fraudulent misrepresentation, deceit and breach of trust, claiming that she told them she was the head of a wealthy consortium of Middle Eastern investors that were interested in financing their projects in central London.
The investors, who source prime residential properties in London and arrange investment and funding for their development, refurbishment, letting and sale for profit, claim that al Moudi made a series of express and implied representations to them, including that her father was Sheikh Mohammed Al Amoudi, one of the richest individuals in the world.
They allege that she led them to believe she had access to enormous wealth and that her mother was a member of the Saudi Royal family.
With al Moudi’s identity key to the case, Asplin J is being asked to decide whether she is in fact a Saudi princess and the daughter of Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi, or alternatively of Mohammed Saleh Al Amoudi, another extremely rich Saudi businessman and a member by marriage of the Saudi Royal Family.
Stuart Cakebread, representing Clutterbuck and Paton, said that, in reliance on her representations and believing them to be true, they entered into joint ventures with al Moudi for the development of properties as above.
In the course of those schemes, he said that al Moudi represented to them that her family would fund one extensive project at 48-56 Hans Place – near Harrods, in Chelsea – and share the profits with them if they transferred six properties into her name at substantial undervalues.
Ultimately, he said that she persuaded them to transfer seven properties to her, with the only money she paid for them constituting the costs of redeeming existing mortgages and charges on them.
He claimed that she paid these sums with money fraudulently obtained from HSBC bank by representing herself to be the daughter of the Sheikh, who is estimated by Forbes to be worth US$6.9bn and by concocting a story that she was owed some £10m she had invested in a property company which was being paid in shares and the equity in the properties themselves.
However, he said that the promised funding from al Moudi never materialised and she now refuses to transfer the titles to the properties back to his clients.
In written representations in the case, he said: “The claimants’ case is that the defendant is a fraud who lied to the claimants, banks and courts in order to obtain loans, money and political asylum.”
“In summary, the defendant is a fake. She is not the daughter of a billionaire and in fact the court has no way of knowing who she is.”
He said that, at a late stage before trial, she put forward an alternative claim to be the daughter of Mohammed Saleh Al Amoudi, but that, if this were the case, she could have proved it years ago.
Defending the case, al Moudi claims that she was never party to any joint venture with Clutterbuck and Paton, and alleges that she received large amounts of money in cash from the Middle East in suitcases, sometimes more than £100,000 a week, which she either entrusted to Paton for safe-keeping or loaned to him.
She claims that the titles were transferred to her to reimburse those loans, that the properties are now rightfully hers and counterclaims for further debts she alleges against Paton.
The trial is scheduled to last three weeks.
Clutterbuck and anr v al Amoudi Chancery (Asplin J) 9 July 2013
