investment at any stage. Nasim Ahmad, who is now Regional Head for Global South Asia, for the ME and Pakistan in Deutsche’s Private Wealth Management Division, and Khan family were so close that they went on Haj together. The Khan family has claimed that the refusal of the bank to pay the full amount prevented the family from carrying out development work on the Bishops Avenue mansion. The Khan family won planning permission in 2009 to demolish it and replace it with a 46,000sq ft residence, which would have been London’s largest mansion after Buckingham Palace. The family claims that due to this they lost substantial profits, said to run into tens of millions of pounds. The family claims Deutsche tried to cover this up by engineering a default on loan agreement using dubious valuations and charging a default rate of interest three times the agreed rate. The Bank has argued the property portfolio fell almost by half in value in 2008 and 2010 giving them right to terminate the loan. The judge will take about two months to decide. He will assess whether there has been a breach of contract on part of the bank in not lending extra £10 million to the Khan family. Secondly, he will also assess if there has been a breach of contract then it will be assessed whether the bank legally obtained the first supplement. For the Khan family to win the case on liability, the judge has to find on both counts in favour of Khan family.
Rashad Yaqoob, an independent legal consultant, commented while speaking to The News: “Western private banks will be looking very keenly at the outcome of this case as to how private bankers conduct themselves in balancing their duty of care to their bank and the client.” When asked for comment, the Deutsche Bank said in a statement: “This is a straightforward case of borrowers taking out a loan and failing to meet their obligations.”