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By Anthony Reuben
Business reporter, BBC News
The talk around the High Court's Chancery Division was about the legal battle
over whether the ambassador had, actually, been spoiling his guests.
And for those in on it, the joke was, well, "excellente".
But sadly for fans of the much-quoted 1980s television advertisement, that was
not the matter being heard.
The case at the court is indeed against Ferrero, the company behind Ferrero
Rocher chocolates as well as Nutella spread and Tic-tacs.
But there is no challenge to the quality of the confectionery.
Seven years after the event, a fraud case involving two major banks, Ferrero,
and the world's biggest supplier of hazelnuts, is finally nearing its
conclusion.
Switched nuts
By February 2002, Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi and Belgium's KBC Bank had lent
22.8m euros ($29.6m; 20.3m) to the Turkish hazelnut supplier Baskan Gida.
The banks thought that the money would be used to buy hazelnuts from growers
and would then be repaid by companies such as Ferrero paying for them.
Instead of the money for the hazelnuts going to Baskan Gida it would go
directly to the banks.
But by the time Ferrero came to buy the nuts, they were bought not from Baskan
Gida, but from another company called Aksu Gida.
The banks allege that all of the assets, including the hazelnuts, had been
transferred to Aksu Gida and another company called Baskan Yuksel.
This left Baskan Gida as "a worthless shell", the court heard, although it is
hard to tell if the lawyers involved have spotted the pun.
As a result, the banks only got about 2m euros of their money back.
The banks allege that Ferrero was involved with the switch, and indeed that it
authorised it, but the Italian company denies that.
Another defendant, Shabbir Abidali, is accused, along with two companies with
which he worked, of being involved in the switching of the assets, and he also
denies the allegations.
Seven other defendants are named, but they have either not turned up for the
proceedings or are companies in liquidation.
The judge could still find against them, but it is unlikely that the banks
would be able to get a significant amount of money from them.
'Hardly a masterpiece'
The case finally began before Mr Justice Briggs last October and a judgment is
expected in May or early next month.
"It is obvious that the Ferrero defendants were very well aware of what Baskan
Gida was doing... but were prepared to put their commercial interests first on
the basis that they thought that the prospects of anyone ever discovering the
truth were so small as to be discountable," the counsel for the banks
submitted.
But the counsel for Ferrero reached a very different conclusion.
"The picture the banks seek to paint is of a Ferrero, which paid vast sums of
money to assist a fraud by Baskan Gida, in return for a hazelnut mountain for
which it had no use and five years of litigation for which it had no wish."
"Even painted impressionistically, as the banks have sought to do, it is hardly
a masterpiece."
Mr Abidali's lawyers say that the hazelnuts that were transferred were not even
the ones on which the bank loans were secured.
Lengthy case
In a nutshell, it is a complicated case by any standards.
The opening arguments submitted by the banks and the two defendants run to a
total of more than 500 pages, including extensive discussions of the state of
the Turkish hazelnut market and how hazelnuts are priced.
The case has called on the expertise of a Queen's Counsel (QC) and two other
barristers for the claimants, a QC and two other barristers acting for Ferrero
and another barrister acting for Mr Abidali, not to mention the solicitors
involved and what the submission for the banks described as a "painstaking
investigation".
The case was in court for a total of 84 days.
But the action in London is not the only one - there is also a case underway in
Italy.
Price of litigation
A jurisdiction battle earlier in the process decided that the fraud case should
be heard in London while the contractual dispute takes place in Italy.
London is relevant to the case because the loans made to the Turkish hazelnut
supplier came from the London branches of the two banks and one of the
defendant companies, Indo Mediterranean Commodities, which is in liquidation,
was based in London.
Taken over the seven years of this case, with an extremely long hearing in
London and a parallel trial in Italy, the cost of the legal action will be
astronomical.
Indeed, well-informed sources have suggested that if the legal costs of the
banks, Ferrero and Mr Abidali were added together, the total would not be far
off the 22.8m euros at the centre of the case.
Proceedings in the Italian case included a recent estimate of Ferrero's costs
alone of 11m euros.
Under such circumstances, when the verdict comes, the awarding of costs may
become the most important part of the ruling.