| 01 Apr 2010 |
|
Meraas lawyer faces charge in corporate secrets case
- Text size
A corporate lawyer at Meraas Capital in Dubai has been accused of industrial espionage after allegedly revealing inside information about the company to a competitor.
The American lawyer, JC, who failed to appear in the Dubai Criminal Court of First Instance yesterday, has been charged with revealing company secrets.
JC, 37, faces up to five years in prison and Dh20,000 (US$5,450) in fines if found guilty under rules for cases involving public officials.
Prosecutors have pushed for those working in government-related organisations to be tried as public officials, a designation that carries tougher sentences on conviction.
Meraas Capital is a subsidiary of Meraas Holdings, a property investment company owned by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.
Meraas Holdings announced the launch of the Dh350 billion Jumeira Gardens in October 2008. The development, in the Satwa and Al Wasl districts between the Jumeira and Sheikh Zayed roads in Dubai, was expected to be completed over 12 years, Meraas said at the time.
The designs showed five towers, including a trio of buildings more than 600 metres tall that would be connected by inhabitable sky bridges, as well as islands off the coast and a network of canals.
A large canal was to run through the heart of the development and flow into the Business Bay Canal at one end, and the sea at the other. The first phase of the development was to occupy 820,000 square metres and was to include six blocks of residential and retail buildings, two hotels and a luxury shopping area.
The indictment sheet for the case claimed e-mail records showed communications between JC and AS, 48, a lawyer at Al Qudra HoldingAl Qudra Holding
in Abu Dhabi, between February 12 and February 20 last year.
The e-mails allegedly detailed sensitive information about Jumeira Gardens, including the names of its contractors, consultants and planners, as well as internal financial details of the company's dealings with the planners and contractors, the indictment read.
In their first communication, AS allegedly asked JC to provide her with a full list of the consultants used by Meraas Holdings, and a list of the major planners and consultants in Dubai.
JC replied that Meraas Holdings had used several consultants for its projects and the company was in debt to them, the indictment sheet showed.
In another e-mail, JC allegedly revealed the names of the contractors to AS and said the company had decided to deal with another, more expensive contractor after dropping its first choice, which eventually led to the Jumeira Gardens project being cancelled, according to the indictment sheet.
A third e-mail exchange allegedly showed JC told AS that Meraas Holdings employees were leaving the company and that it was facing liquidation.
Public prosecutors stated in the indictment document, without providing details, that financial and market secrets were also revealed in that e-mail.
The defendant told prosecutors that he was taken before a Meraas Capital disciplinary committee on March 5 last year and his actions were questioned, records showed.
JC presented the committee with a letter acknowledging his error in judgement and claimed that he had provided information to AS with no intention of hurting his company's interests.
Prosecution records showed he said he had tried to apply for a job at Al Qudra HoldingAl Qudra Holding and thought his information would ease his way in.
AS allegedly told prosecutors she knew JC through the Dubai Corporate Council Group, of which they were both members.
The records claim she also told prosecutors that, in her communications with JC, she had only requested a list of contractors and planners, and that he had responded with more information and details of his own accord.
Fahmy Mounir Fahmy, the presiding judge, adjourned the case until April 18 for the defendant to enter his plea.
By Awad Mustafa
© The National 2010
Zawya is a distributor (and not a publisher) of content supplied by third parties and subscribers. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers, or other information or content expressed or made available by those third parties, including information providers, subscribers or other users of the Service, are those of the respective author(s) or distributor(s) and not of the Company. The Company neither endorses nor is responsible for the accuracy or reliability of any opinion, advice or statement made on the Service by anyone other than authorized Service employee spokespersons while acting in their official capacities. The Company is not responsible for any infringement of intellectual property rights or breach of any applicable law or regulation, including regulation in relation to financial services or the distribution of financial products, defamation, data protection, telecommunications (including regulations relating to excessive use, spamming or other abusive activities) or obscene, offensive or illegal content). Under no circumstances will the Company be liable for any loss or damage caused by a member's reliance on information obtained through the Service. It is the responsibility of member to evaluate the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any information, opinion, advice or other content available through the Service. Please seek the advice of professionals, as appropriate, regarding the evaluation of any specific information, opinion, advice or other content.
Read the full Member Agreement
http://www.zawya.com/legal/NewsLetter.cfm?name=disclaimer
More News in Financial Services
Loading ...
Post a Comment
Community Comments (1)
I Just E-Mailed a Friend, US Lawyer Charged in Dubai Corporate Info Case Tells ABA Journal
A U.S. lawyer criminally charged in Dubai with leaking information about his corporate employer says he simply e-mailed a friend from work a couple of times about what was going on in his life, including a job search.
But there is no way that anyone reading the e-mail he sent to a fellow in-house counsel would think he did anything criminal, Justin Connor tells the ABA Journal. "You can't read it and say 'This person had criminal intent.' "
As detailed in an earlier ABAJournal.com post, the 37-year-old Connor—who is identified only by his initials in the underlying coverage and reached out to the ABA Journal after seeing the post—is facing a charge of revealing company secrets about his employer, Meraas Holdings.
However, the information in his e-mail didn't provide a benefit or cause a loss to anyone involved, Connor says. And although the prosecution apparently may be arguing that he relayed it as part of an effort to get a job at his friend's company, he never had an interest in working there or applied for a job there, he adds.
Connor says he is admitted in the District of Columbia, Massachusetts and New York and specializes in telecommunications.
Connor attributes the criminal case against him to a civil complaint he initially filed against his employer seeking an end-of-service benefit to which he says he was entitled under both his contract of employment and United Arab Emirates law. However, the suit created major political issues for him, Connor tells the ABA Journal, and he failed to anticipate how difficult it would be for him to get legal representation both to pursue the employment claim and to fight the criminal case that he says resulted from it, even though the compensation case has now been dismissed.
"It was clear that it was kind of a heavy-handed tactic to get me to withdraw the labor complaint," he says of the criminal case against him, "and it worked."
However, the criminal case is still proceeding, and Connor says that it will be very difficult for him to fight it in Dubai. He said he did not appear at a court hearing today because he was the only family member able to help his mother with a medical emergency that required his presence elsewhere.
A Facebook page, Justice for Justin Connor, has been set up to keep friends and colleagues apprised about the case against him, and a website is under development.
They all know him as an even-keeled, calm individual who lives a quiet life, Connor says, so he's now hearing from many of them: "You're the last person in the world that we thought something like this would happen to."
1.1 Contain any material which is libelous or defamatory of any person, is obscene, offensive, hateful or inflammatory or causes damage to the reputation of any person or organisation.
1.2 Promote sexually explicit material, violence, discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age or any illegal activity.
1.3 Be made in breach of any legal duty owed to a third party, such as a contractual duty or a duty of confidence.
1.4 Be threatening, abuse or invade another's privacy, or cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety.
1.5 Be used to impersonate any person, to misrepresent your identity or affiliation with any person, or be likely to deceive any person.
1.6 Give the impression that they represent Zawya.
1.7 Advocate, promote or assist any unlawful act such as (by way of example only) copyright infringement or computer misuse.