JEDDAH: Following a Supreme Judicial Council order to review the accounts of the profit received when land involved in the Venice Islands scam were auctioned, the official liquidator submitted the final accounts of the auction and other dealings related to the project to the General Court in Jeddah recently.
“The additional proceeds from the liquidation exceeded 25 percent of the capital,” said Saleh Al-Nuaem, the liquidator of the project which was illegally promoted by the Saleh Al-Duraibi Group in Jeddah five years ago.
An investment of around SR1.53 billion was collected by the Al-Duraibi Group for the project, with plans to build residential, commercial and entertainment facilities over a 20 million sq. meter area at a strategic location in south Jeddah at a cost of between SR10 billion and SR15 billion. The project ran into serious trouble when it was revealed that it had not received the mandatory approval of the municipality or the Higher Committee for the Development of Makkah Province.
After four-year long litigation between the shareholders and the group, the Jeddah General Court ordered the liquidation of the project and the auction of 20 million sq. meters of its land in May last year.
“The auction was undertaken simultaneously in Jeddah, Riyadh, Kuwait and Dubai with the help of video linking to guarantee maximum transparency in the auction process,” Al-Nuaem said.
A total of SR1.47 billion out of the SR1.53 billion investment was paid to the shareholders.
The liquidator said the price received at the auction was within the estimations of the Real Estate Committee in the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry. “The auction and collection of the bids were made under the supervision of an experts’ commission appointed by the Jeddah court,” Al-Nuaem said, expressing helplessness in releasing full details of the account, including legal and financial irregularities because the matter was under the consideration of the court.
He added that the court looking into the scam is keen in avoiding any more delay in the final settlement of the issue as it has already caused a lot of loss and misery to the investors. “That is why Judge Hamad Al-Khodairy, who is handling the case at the Jeddah General Court, took steps to guarantee that public auction of the involved land took place at the previously determined date despite pressures to postpone it.”
