US Court Rejects Plea For Attachment Of Sahara Hotels

16 September, New York

In a relief to Sahara, a US court has rejected a plea seeking to attach the Indian group’s prized Plaza and Dream Downtown hotels in New York. Hong Kong-based JTS Trading had approached the court seeking the attachment as part of its USD 350-million lawsuit against UAE-based Trinity White City Ventures, Sahara group and Swiss banking giant UBS over a deal that went sour.

While hearings will continue on the lawsuit, the Supreme Court of the State of New York has ordered that “the application of plaintiff JTS Trading Ltd for a pre-judgement order of attachment is denied”.

Sahara, along with the two others, has been dragged into the lawsuit filed by JTS Trading, which claims that it had proposed to partner Trinity and arrange loans from UBS to acquire Sahara’s three overseas hotels – Grosvenor House in London and the two in the US. JTS has alleged that Trinity cut it off from the estimated USD 1.5 billion deal for direct negotiations with Sahara.

Meanwhile , bringing to closure over 7-year-old case, Reserve Bank has cancelled Sahara India Financial Corporation’s certificate of registration as NBFC. Following the cancellation of registration certificate, the company will no longer be able to transact business of a non-banking financial institution.