Royal Court of Justice favors Trafigura in suit against Indian businessman Prateek Gupta
Royal Court of Justice favors Trafigura in suit against Indian businessman Prateek Gupta
The Geneva-based company wins $600 million in damages
The Royal Court of Justice in London has ruled in favour of Geneva-based commodities trader, Trafigura, in a lawsuit against Indian businessman, Prateek Gupta, over fake nickel cargoes.
Trafigura had accused Gupta of being the mastermind of a fraudulent ‘Ponzi scheme’ wherein his companies offered high-quality 99.8 percent pure nickel. However, low-grade and useless materials were delivered by him.
While Gupta admitted delivering the not-so-high-grade nickel cargoes, he accused the employees of Trafigura of devising the scheme.
Though Trafigura's former head nickel trader Sokratis Oikonomou denied the accusations while giving evidence.
Thus, High Court Judge Pushpinder Saini held that Trafigura was influenced by Gupta and his companies to enter into contracts ‘by false and fraudulent representations’.
While giving a clean chit to Oikonomou and Trafigura's former employees, Judge Saini stated they were “innocent of any wrongdoing".
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Trafigura expressed that the ruling recognised “the systematic fraud perpetrated by Gupta and the corporate defendants and we are pursuing recovery from Gupta.”
The trial concluded in December 2025 and was the culmination of events that began in November 2022, when Trafigura received complaints from its clients about cargoes.
The criticism for goods prompted Trafigura to inspect the consignments.
Trafigura sued Gupta and his companies in February 2023 for ‘systematic fraud’, demanding $590 million in damages.
During the trial, Trafigura submitted that Gupta had a history of fraudulent dealings. The company blamed him for siphoning off funds from the alleged scheme to support his struggling businesses.
However, Gupta, who gave evidence remotely from Dubai, stated that Trafigura came up with a complex roundabout transaction to inflate its standing in nickel trading. Gupta’s attorneys submitted that the scheme involved over 500 trades of $3.3 billion.
On the other hand, Trafigura's lawyers described Gupta's evidence as "implausible, inconsistent, and incredible" and were merely an attempt to disown the fraud.
