India’s Bank of Baroda agrees $600m payout in NMC fraud case

• Bank of Baroda agrees settlement
• NMC administrator’s claim continues
• Shetty and Manghat are defendants

Bank of Baroda, one of India’s largest lenders, has agreed a $600 million out-of-court settlement in the NMC Health fraud case.

The India-listed bank was one of three defendants in the $5.4 billion claim brought by Alvarez & Marsal (A&M), administrator of the collapsed Abu Dhabi-based healthcare company.

A&M alleges that NMC’s founder, Indian-born BR Shetty, and its former chief executive, Prasanth Manghat, defrauded the company and that majority state-owned Bank of Baroda knowingly facilitated the fraud.

The bank denied the allegations.

The settlement was agreed without any admission of liability or wrongdoing, according to a statement from A&M’s legal representation, the law firm Quinn Emanuel.

The terms are otherwise confidential and the parties are no longer in dispute, it added.

Bank of Baroda said in a filing to the National Stock Exchange of India, where its shares are traded: “The above settlement is to bring the disputes to conclusion thereby avoiding prolonged litigation, uncertainty and associated cost.”

Bank of Baroda’s share price was down more than 4 percent on Thursday.

The trial has been ongoing in Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) Courts in the UAE since March and is scheduled to run until July 9. Shetty and Prasanth remain defendants in the case.

Former FTSE100 company NMC Health was the UAE’s largest private healthcare company and the first Abu Dhabi company to list on the London Stock Exchange. At its peak it was valued at $8.6 billion and operated across 19 countries.

It unravelled after a December 2019 report by US short seller Muddy Waters raised accounting and governance issues.

A subsequent investigation by risk management company Freeh Group, commissioned by NMC, led to the discovery of $6.6 billion in debt. A&M was appointed as administrator in 2020.

• NMC Health founder BR Shetty’s fraud trial begins
• NMC funds allegedly used for Shetty luxury assets, court hears
• NMC trial: bank executives ‘approved payments in bulk’

NMC’s collapse hit investors, including its biggest lender Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB), whose fraud claim against Manghat is being heard concurrently in ADGM Courts and is also expected to conclude next week. There are also proceedings pending in London.

Quinn Emanuel continues to act against Shetty and Manghat in the ADGM and London hearings. Those claims relate to creditor losses in excess of $5 billion, it said.