Muktdesh Desk: Mohammad Saiful Alam, founder and chairman of industrial conglomerate S Alam Group, has filed a case in an international arbitration court for losses of crores of taka. The arbitration application was submitted to the World Bank’s International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes in Washington on Monday. Financial Times reported.
The report said that in the case, he argued that his family’s business has suffered ‘hundreds of millions’ of dollars in losses due to the current Bangladesh government’s efforts to recover assets illegally smuggled abroad.
Mohammad Saiful Alam, founder and chairman of Abdene S Alam Group, and his family have argued that they have become ‘targets of asset seizure, confiscation and value destruction’ by the current interim government.
The case is expected to be a major setback in the fight to bring back billions of dollars smuggled out of the country during the fascist Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule.
An economic white paper released by the Bangladesh government in December put the amount of losses at around $234 billion.
Bangladesh Bank Governor Ahsan Mansur, who is leading the government’s asset recovery efforts, has alleged that the S Alam family has siphoned off about $12 billion from the country’s banking system.
However, S Alam said there was no truth to the Bangladesh Bank governor’s allegations.
Lawyers for the S Alam family had warned the interim government in December last year that they would file an arbitration case if the dispute was not resolved within six months.
In the notice at the time, lawyers for Quinn Emmanuel Urquhart and Sullivan alleged that the interim government had frozen the S Alam family’s bank accounts and assets, conducted “false and fabricated” investigations into their business dealings, and was cooperating with “provocative propaganda” in the media targeting the family. This had caused the company significant losses, estimated at “hundreds of millions” of dollars.
However, the amount of compensation sought by the S Alam family was not specified.
Asked about S Alam’s application for arbitration, Mansur told the FT: “We will respond through appropriate channels as soon as it reaches us.” Yunus’ office did not respond to a request for comment.
Asked about S Alam’s case at the International Arbitration Court, Bangladesh Bank Governor Ahsan H Mansur told the Financial Times: “When it reaches us, we will respond through appropriate channels.”
The arbitration case was filed under the 2004 Bilateral Investment Treaty between Bangladesh and Singapore. It is worth noting that the S Alam family members were granted Singapore citizenship between 2021 and 2023. They renounced their Bangladeshi nationality in 2020.
The S Alam family had previously argued that as Singapore citizens, they should be protected by rights granted by Bangladesh’s Foreign Private Investment Act of 1980.
Former IMF official Ahsan Mansur had earlier accused S Alam, his family and associates of laundering money from the banking system by forcibly taking over banks.
He said S Alam and his associates used methods such as loans to six banks controlled by the company and inflated import invoices.
Ahsan Mansur also said, “We have received a lot of evidence, which shows how much wealth they have shifted elsewhere.”
However, in the arbitration case, the S Alam family claimed that the current interim government failed to present evidence regarding the allegations made against them.
