The Kuwaiti Al-Hasawi family, who formerly owned Nottingham Forest, have filed a lawsuit in Palma against the administrator of their properties in Mallorca. They accuse him of having defrauded them of around half a million euros.
The administrator was responsible for the properties for five years and charged 200,000 euros annually for maintenance and care. It is alleged that rather than carrying out work, he exploited the properties for his own benefit. This included renting them out to hunters and selling wood.
He has already testified before the judge in charge of the case, has denied the accusations and stated that he carried out work as instructed.
The family acquired estates in Mallorca in the late 1970s - Capocorb in Llucmajor, Ses Planes in Calvia, and Son Jaumell in Capdepera. The intention had been to build on them, but legislation prevented this. One was sold in March to a Spanish businessman.
The complainant is Fawzia Al-Hasawi, owner of the London-based property firm Al Mubarakia Ltd. Its portfolio includes properties in the UK, Germany, the US and Hong Kong. Her brother, Fawaz Al-Hasawi, was the owner and chairman of Nottingham Forest for five years between 2012 and 2017; it proved to be a disastrous period for the club.
In the 1990s, there was a major legal case in Mallorca that involved a massive fraud by Martín Ferriol Font. He managed the Al-Hasawi family assets and was accused of a fraud equating to almost 25 million euros. He was arrested in 1992. But having testified in court, he fled to the UK. His extradition was secured and he spent a few months in prison before being released on bail pending his trial. In 1994 he was found dead of natural causes in the Can Valero industrial estate in Palma.