UK Court Orders Sale Of Luxury Yacht Owned By Mallya

A court in the United Kingdom has ordered that a luxury yacht owned by Force India Limited, which belongs to fugitive defaulter Vijay Mallya be sold, and its proceeds be used to pay back the Qatar National Bank to enforce its mortgage on the vessel.

In the course of court proceedings, brought by the Qatar Bank in the Admiralty Division of the High Court in the United Kingdom, it was claimed that Vijay Mallya's son Siddharth Mallya was the ultimate beneficial owner of the yacht.

The Qatar Bank stated that its claim was focused on recovering outstanding loan payments estimated at around 6 million Euros.

The judgment also took note of the fact that the defendant, listed as “the owner of the yacht Force India”, chose not to appear at a scheduled trial earlier in January 2020, after its solicitors “came off the record” in November 2019.

A consortium of Indian banks, led by State Bank of India, are likely to be among those claimants as they pursue a separate bankruptcy order against Mallya over unpaid loans related to his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines.

Meanwhile, Mallya remains on bail on a warrant executed by Scotland Yard in April 2017 pending a High Court appeal in February 2020 against his extradition order to India, signed off by former UK home secretary Sajid Javid in 2019.

The former Kingfisher Airlines boss had won a reprieve in July 2019 when a two-judge panel at the Royal Courts of Justice in London granted him permission to appeal against the extradition order of Westminster Magistrates' Court to face fraud and money laundering charges amounting to Rs 9,000 crore in India.