The stunning win for a man accused of insulting a palace that is both revered and feared comes as Thailand faces a political turning point. The law that protects the monarchy, lese-majeste, was the subject of this year’s election campaign, and the party urging reform won the lion’s share of the votes but has been denied the chance to form a government.
Exiled Thai businessman Nopporn Suppipat had a significant win in a British court.Credit: LinkedIn
Critics have become more strident since the protest movement of 2020, and they increasingly include those who have had a ringside seat to how power works in the south-east Asian kingdom.
Nopporn’s quest to regain the value of his company has been vindicated, although some of his claims against 17 defendants fell short. The judge ruled he should be repaid about $1.35 billion.
Justice Neil Calver of the King’s Bench Division said Nopporn was at times less than straightforward, but had an “understandable sense of grievance” against defendants “he trusted but who had so thoroughly betrayed him”.
“The nature and extent of [some defendants’] lies was at times breathtaking, as was their relaxed attitude to the production of false documents in order to deceive and mislead others. It is plain that truth has become an alien concept to some of these defendants.”
The first defendant was Nop Narongdej, who was found to have deceived Nopporn into entering a share purchase agreement. Under the deal, Nop stood to make $US140 million for standing as Nopporn’s proxy. Instead, Nop repeatedly missed payment deadlines, siphoned the shares to family and business associates and to companies in Hong Kong, Belize and elsewhere beyond Nopporn’s reach.
Also named as a defendant was the Siam Commercial Bank, whose largest shareholder is King Vajiralongkorn. The bank’s CEO Arthid Nanthawithaya was among the defendants.
While the judge found Nopporn was the victim of false representations on several occasions, he ruled there was insufficient evidence to support the claim that Vajiralongkorn’s name had been invoked during the negotiations.
Nopporn was not alone in testifying about Nop’s purported relationship with the future king. Another witness said during the trial: “If you walk into his office he has a New Year card that is signed by the crown prince … And many times he has told me the story that, oh, he just had dinner with the crown prince; he just went to this place with the crown prince, etc. He led me to believe that he has a good relationship, and for us to get over this we need to find someone that could sort out what we call this soft issue out, so we can move forward.”
Nop’s lawyers, in their closing submissions, called the invocation of Vajiralongkorn “utterly implausible”.
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Nopporn claimed he was misled and pressured in various other ways to offload his shares, and that the defendants lied not only to him but on the stand in arbitration hearings.
In their closing statement, lawyers for Nopporn and his companies outlined “years of dishonest transactions, backdated and fraudulent documents, together with brazen use of offshore companies and nominees connected to Khun Nop”.
The judge found Nop engaged in serious dishonest conduct by misappropriating funds from Wind Energy Holding for partial payment to Nopporn.
Calver also found Nop and three WEH executives engaged in a “ring-fencing solution” to deprive Nopporn of payment, using a series of companies in Hong Kong to keep the shares out of reach.
Siam Commercial Bank was not found to have engaged in deliberate and dishonest conduct and was not a party to Nop’s asset-stripping. However, Calver said SCB’s actions “fell well short of the conduct to be expected of a diligent and reputable bank”.
A portrait of Vajiralongkorn outside the Siam Commercial Bank headquarters in Bangkok. The king is the largest shareholder in the bank, which was named as a defendant in the case.Credit: Getty
Its chief executive, Arthid, was “somewhat evasive” in his testimony but Calver ruled there was insufficient evidence that he was dishonestly involved in the ring-fencing scheme. SCB and Arthid “did not play any part of the transferring, removal or concealment” of the relevant shares.
During the eight years of litigation, a million WEH shares were discovered in a Belize company that had a close friend of Arthid installed as director. The judge ruled the man was not Arthid’s nominee, as claimed, but that Nop used the company in the asset-stripping scheme.
When the judgment was delivered, SCB shares were trading at 112 baht. Vajiralongkorn’s 23.38 per cent stake in the bank was worth $3.89 billion.
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