A one-time billionaire and the brother of Asia’s richest man, Anil Ambani, has been asked by the court to set aside $100 million (N36,350,000,000) in his dispute as three Chinese banks launch a lawsuit against him.
The man has, however, pleaded poverty, saying his net worth is nothing.
In a plea to the court, he said that “the value of his investments has collapsed”. He said he does not have any valuable assets which can be traded off for money.
According to Bloomberg, the banks filed a lawsuit against Ambani on the defaulted loan of $925 million (N336,237,500,000) they gave to his company, Ambani’s Reliance Communications Ltd.
The man said he would appeal the court’s order and never promised the banks’ loan will be tied to his assets.
The order that he should set an amount into the court’s account was given by Judge David Waksman, one that Anil said he would appeal.
The formerly wealthy man said he never gave the banks a debt guarantee connected to his assets as prayed by the financial institution.
Ambani’s lawyer, Robert Howe, has said that the court should not put on his client the financial burden he cannot shoulder.
The lawyer representing Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd, China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China, Bankim Thanki, said that Ambani’s plea is a way to escape obligations.
It should be noted that the relationship between Ambani and his brother, Mukesh Ambani, has been rocky since the death of their father who left behind an empire that was split between them.
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