Orascom’s boss Naguib Sawiris called “a liar” by the UK High Court

The Egyptian tycoon Naguib Sawiris has been ordered by Lord Justice Nicolas Patten to pay his former partner more than 75 millions euros.
A lawsuit concerning Europe's largest leveraged buyout was tried in the U.K. High Court in 2009 and will be heard by the Court of Appeal in July 2010. In the court case, Lord Justice Nicolas Patten ordered Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris to pay his former Italian business partner more than EUR 75 million ($104 million) over the acquisition of Wind, a telecommunications company. In 2005, Naguib Sawiris completed the deal using a strategy his business partner designed.
According to court documents, Naguib Sawiris' business partner stated in his case that he introduced the proposed acquisition of Wind to Naguib Sawiris, who had no relevant contacts with Wind, Enel, or the Italian government, and no direct experience of or standing in the telecommunications market. He argued that Naguib Sawiris agreed to give him a one-third equity stake worth billions in an investment company called Weather Investments that was used to acquire control of Wind. Naguib Sawiris countered that he made no such agreement, and that his partner deserved no more than a 1 percent fee. Naguib Sawiris ultimately acquired Wind through Weather in a deal worth more than EUR 12 billion ($18.7bn) from Italian utility Enel. Naguib Sawiris told the court he was bad with dates, and the judge described him as being "equally dogmatic about and often insistent" that certain of the meetings described by his business partner (for example, the 22nd April 2003 meeting in Cannes) did not occur. The judge found evidence sufficient to be satisfied that the aforementioned "meeting did take place" between Naguib Sawiris and his partner, as Naguib Sawiris's passport entries and the manifests of his private jet indicated that he was indeed in Cannes on 22nd April. The judge referred to Naguib Sawiris' "lack of accuracy" during the trial and said at times he "did resort to bluster and, on one occasion, told what can only be described as a deliberate lie about his involvement in other litigation."
"For this reason, I have approached his evidence with caution," the judge said of Naguib Sawiris.
Despite the ongoing litigation, Naguib Sawiris is rapidly trying to sell a 10 percent stake in Weather Investments.