LONDON (Reuters) – Prateek Gupta’s lawyers are seeking an extension of a deadline to challenge a $625 million global freezing order imposed by a London Court on the Indian businessman and his firms until June, a spokesperson said on Wednesday.
Freezing orders are injunctions granted by the English courts to restrain individuals or businesses from disposing of or dealing with assets on a worldwide basis.
Commodity trader Trafigura, which sought the order, said in February that it had booked a $577 million charge relating to what it alleges is “systematic fraud” by Gupta’s companies over nickel cargoes.
Gupta previously aimed to prepare “a robust response” to the allegations and file the application to remove the freezing order by April 6.
“The clients are in the process of obtaining an extension of time for the intended discharge application, and the new deadline is likely to be in June,” the spokesperson for Gupta said in an email.
A London court imposed the freezing order, dated Feb. 8, on bank accounts and other assets tied to Gupta and seven companies Trafigura said are controlled by him, including those in Britain, Singapore, Malaysia and Switzerland.
In court papers submitted previously, Trafigura said it began to suspect in October last year that around 25,000 tonnes of metal sold by Gupta’s firms may not be high-grade nickel, and began inspecting more than 1,000 shipping containers.
In February, Trafigura told the judge in a closed-door hearing that some of the first containers inspected were found to contain carbon steel, which is worth a fraction of the price of nickel.
(Reporting by Pratima Desai, Eric Onstad and Polina Devitt; editing by Kirsten Donovan)
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