Big Shareholder Wins Round In BCCI Case --- Ruler of Abu Dhabi Given Extension to Reorganize Scandal-Plagued Bank
The ruling family of Abu Dhabi gained an upper hand in the tussle over the remains of Bank of Credit and Commerce International.</br></br>In Manhattan Friday, a federal bankruptcy judge extended until Nov. 1 an order that blocks most U.S. legal action against the bank in conjunction with an earlier court order in London that gives Sheik Zayed al-Nahyan, the controlling shareholder, more time to come up with a restructuring plan.</br></br>The court actions in New York and London protect most of BCCI's biggest assets and operations from any takeover or liquidation by regulators. That, in turn, paves the way for Sheik Zayed, who assumed 77% ownership of BCCI in April 1990, to try to find a way to preserve some of his investment in BCCI -- as well as his standing in the Muslim community, where depositors are facing hundreds of millions of dollars of potential losses.</br></br>In other developments, the likelihood that British depositors will fare better than those in other countries is producing threats from regulators in Luxembourg, where BCCI's parent company, BCCI Holdings (Luxembourg) S.A., is incorporated.</br></br>And separately, a federal grand jury in Miami indicted Munthur Ismail Bilbeisi, a Jordanian coffee and arms merchant, for tax fraud. But Lloyd's of London, the international insurer, charged the U.S. attorney with mishandling the case by allowing certain statutes of limitation to expire. As a result, a number of BCCI officials who allegedly assisted Mr. Bilbeisi's wrongdoing were let off the hook, Lloyd's complained.