The UAE, its president, oil firm ADNOC, a Swiss-based private investigation firm and others are being sued for $2.8 billion from bankrupt oil firm Lord Energy and its owner, Hazim Nada. The lawsuit originates from allegations of fraud and a targeted attempt to defame the company.
The suit was filed in federal court in Washington, DC on the 24th of January.
Nada and Lord Energy claim that in late 2017 the UAE and some officials have endorsed a “dark” campaign in an attempt to diminish Nada’s personal reputation and to bring down Lord Energy’s trading firm.
The lawsuit alleges that UAE and ADNOC viewed Lord Energy as a growing competitor in Asian markets. ADNOC declined to comment further.
The president of UAE, Mohamed bin Zayed al Nahyan was alleged by Nada for supervising the campaign through UAE officials and a front company that was hired and paid millions to Alp Services SA, a Geneva-based private investigation firm, to coordinate the campaign.
Both UAE’s foreign ministry and government’s media office, as well as the Alp Services SA have received emails to provide any comments on the matter. None of them have responded to those emails. Nada stated that he discovered this scheme after receiving over 8000 hacked documents from Alp’s servers from Swiss authorities. He also stated that he refused to pay the hackers when he was contacted back in 2021. It is unclear when Nada got hold of these documents.
Alp spread “made-up stories” through the media and by contacting international banks and organizations. There are allegations that Lugano, Swiss-based Lord Energy and its US subsidiaries were used as “fronts to finance the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda”.
The codenamed “Project Arnica” campaign was successful as international banks and key partners of Lord Energy cut ties with Nada back in 2018, then declared bankruptcy in April 2019.
Despite Nada’s father’s historic ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, Nada stated that he had never been associated with the Islamist movement.
Nada and Lord Energy are accused of breaking the US laws on five occasions including wire fraud, bank fraud and breaking antitrust laws.
The claim is for triple the amount of actual caused damages. The damages’ sum resulted in £923 million, whereas the lawsuit amounts to £2.8 billion.