FE REPORT
UK-based litigation firms have expressed their interest in investing up to $50 million to help recover assets stolen and laundered from Bangladesh during Sheikh Hasina's regime.
They showed the intent during Bangladesh Bank (BB) Governor Dr. Ahsan H. Mansur's visit to London last month, according to a statement issued by the Chief Adviser's Office on Wednesday.
The fund would be invested to support the interim government's drive to recover the assets laundered from the country.
The governor, who also heads the Asset Recovery Taskforce, during his visit from March 17-21 held meetings with key stakeholders in the public and private sectors.
Since the UK is a major development partner of Bangladesh, a major financial centre as well as one of the largest destination countries for stolen assets, the trip was especially significant, says the statement.
It mentioned that the BB governor had individual meetings with three of the world's largest litigation funders, who expressed the interest to invest and support Bangladesh's asset recovery efforts in hiring law firms and investigators.
Collectively they suggested that "if they could gather sufficient evidence to pursue cases, they may invest up to $50mn in Bangladesh's efforts to recover stolen assets", according to the statement.
It said the governor invited them to come to Bangladesh at the earliest to review the cases that could be pursued with litigation funding.
The recovery of assets misappropriated during the 16 years of the Awami League regime, much of which was transferred illegally overseas, is an important policy priority for the interim government.
The two major sources of such stolen assets were the banking sector as well as corruption in the government. The former is reflected in a record level of non-performing loans (NPLs) of at least 20 per cent and rising.
According to the statement, the Chief Advisor held an Asset Recovery Review meeting on March 10 when he directed all the key agencies to accelerate their efforts in the major money laundering destination countries.
During his trip, Governor Dr Mansur gave an interview to Al Jazeera, informing that the Bangladesh Bank has set up 11 specialist teams to track the assets of 11 powerful families accused of laundering billions of dollars to the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Malaysia, and Singapore over the past decade.
In the interview, he also said the amounts of money in question are staggering. Just one of the 11 families under investigation is suspected of moving $15bn worth of funds out of Bangladesh - in one case withdrawing nearly 90 per cent of a single bank's deposits, leaving it close to collapse.
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