AgustaWestland case: ED arrests Rajiv Saxena, lobbyist Deepak Talwar

In a major boost to agencies probing high-profile corruption cases, a Dubai-based businessman wanted in the VVIP choppers case and a corporate aviation lobbyist have been deported to India, officials said Thursday.
They said Rajiv Shamsher Bahadur Saxena wanted in Rs 3,600 crore AgustaWestland VVIP choppers money laundering case and lobbyist Deepak Talwar wanted by the ED and the CBI in a case of misusing over Rs 90 crore taken through the foreign funding route, were brought in a special plane to Delhi around 1:30 AM.
The two have been arrested by the ED.
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The agency has taken their custody and they will be produced before a court here later in the day, the officials said.
Both of them were picked by Dubai authorities on Wednesday "in assistance" to a request made by Indian agencies, they added.
A co-accused and alleged middleman in this case, British national Christian James Michel was recently extradited from Dubai to India (in December last year). He is currently in judicial custody.
Saxena's lawyers alleged that no extradition proceedings were started against him in the UAE and he was not allowed to access his family or lawyers while being sent to India.
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Talwar has been charged with criminal conspiracy, forgery and under various sections of the FCRA for allegedly diverting Rs 90.72 crore worth of foreign funds meant for ambulances and other articles received by his NGO from Europe's leading missile manufacturing company. His role in some aviation deals during the UPA government's regime is under scanner.
Talwar has been booked by the ED and the CBI in criminal cases of corruption, even as the Income Tax Department has charged him with tax evasion.
The ED had summoned Rajiv Saxena, a resident of Palm Jumeirah in Dubai, multiple times in the case and had arrested his wife Shivani Saxena from the Chennai airport in July 2017. She is now out on bail.
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The ED had alleged that Rajiv, his wife and their two Dubai-based firms-- Ms UHY Saxena, Dubai and Ms Matrix Holdings -- routed"the proceeds of crime and further layered and integrated in buying the immovable properties/shares among others".
The ED had said that its probe found that "Agusta Westland International Ltd, UK paid an amount of Euro 58 million as kickbacks through Gordian Services Sarl, Tunisia and IDS Sarl, Tunisia.
"These companies further siphoned off the said money/ proceeds of crime in the name of consultancy contracts to Interstellar Technologies Ltd, Mauritius, and others which were further transferred to UHY Saxena, Dubai and Matrix Holdings Ltd. Dubai and others," the ED had charged.
The ED had said Rajiv is "beneficial owner" of Interstellar Technologies Ltd and both his companies received proceeds of crime in their respective Dubai bank accounts from this firm.
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It had said the couple have remitted/ transferred a "huge amount of money" through their Dubai-based companies to various other accounts.
The ED had named Rajiv Saxena in its charge sheet filed in this case and had got issued a non-bailable warrant against him.
On January 1, 2014, India scrapped the contract with Finmeccanica's British subsidiary AgustaWestland for supplying 12 AW-101 VVIP choppers to the IAF over an alleged breach of contractual obligations and charges of kickbacks to the tune of Rs 423 crore paid by the firm for securing the deal.

Tel Aviv, Dubai climb list of costliest cities, thanks to tourism boom

Sunbathing in Tel Aviv or hitting Dubai’s fabulous malls will set you back a bit more lately. A combination of high hotel and apartment costs and strong tourism has Airbnb rates in some Middle Eastern cities among the world’s priciest.
Middle East Climbs

In the latest Bloomberg index, Miami and Boston took the top two spots in the average daily cost of lodging in private dwellings for the second straight year. Airbnb owners asked for $205 a night and $195 a night, respectively, in the two cities. However, the Middle East has been climbing in the annual index and this year has five destinations among the top 15 priciest global cities: Tel Aviv and Dubai at Nos. 4 and 5, and Jerusalem, Riyadh and Kuwait City also near the top.
City of Gold
Dubai’s expensive short-term rentals, averaging $185 a night in Bloomberg’s index, probably are a function of high hotel rates in the Emirati city, where more than 70 per cent of hotel rooms are four-star or above, said Ivana Gazivoda Vucinic of the international real estate firm Chestertons. Dubai’s supply of Airbnb units more than doubled to 3,249 units in the two years ended August 2017, following a relaxing of government regulations, according to Vucinic’s research on Dubai’s short-term rental market.
Dubai has spent billions to pump up its tourism sector and hopes to attract 20 million visitors to the city by 2020, up from 15.8 million visitors last year, according to figures from Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing. Two U.A.E.-sponsored airlines, Emirates and Etihad Airways PJSC, have been among the world’s fastest-growing carriers in recent years. Should Dubai reach the 20 million visitor goal, it will be among the top five most visited cities globally, according to market research firm Euromonitor.
High Costs
Pricey Airbnb listings in Israel may have more to do with the high cost of housing in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, said Yoav Kerner, a lecturer of statistics at Ben-Gurion University in Israel. Apartments in Tel Aviv typically eat up at least three-quarters of the average person’s gross income, said Kerner, who studied the Airbnb market in Tel Aviv on behalf of a hoteliers group.
Since Airbnb owners want a premium over what they could earn renting out their units for a full year, that drives up short-term rental costs, he said. Kerner estimated Airbnb has helped push up overall Tel Aviv rents by about 10 per cent, he said.
Several cities around the globe, including New York, have put various restrictions on the short-term rental market out of fear that the practice drives up housing costs. Airbnb spokesman Nick Papas challenged this idea, saying it’s being perpetuated in part by hoteliers.
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“It’s no surprise to see the hotel industry paying for misleading reports about our community,” Papas said by email. “The data shows that these claims simply don’t hold water.”
Airbnb figures show that the average daily rate in Tel Aviv is $87 and the average rate in Jerusalem is $82, far lower than the $188 per night and $173 per night costs that Bloomberg found. Airbnb uses a different methodology than Bloomberg, including looking at rates of units that were actually booked, while Bloomberg looked at advertised rates.
While the Bloomberg index considered Airbnb listings in more than 120 global cities, the highest worldwide prices for short-term rentals can be found in smaller resort destinations, according to short-term rental information provider AirDNA. The Caribbean island St. Barthelemy had the highest average daily rate over the past year, at $1,127, followed by the ski resort city of Vail, Colorado, at $668, according to AirDNA figures for units rented out for at least 30 days a year in cities with at least 1,000 listings.

Dubai's economy hits rough patch amid market slump, falling property prices

In Dubai's posh Jumeirah Beach Residence district, luxury apartment rents are down about 15 per cent from a year ago - a sign, some fear, that the wealthy emirate's recipe for economic success is getting stale.
For over two decades, Dubai prospered as one of the world's most international cities, attracting people and capital from across the globe.
Nine years ago, it needed a $20 billion bailout from oil-rich Abu Dhabi to escape a debt crisis caused by collapsing property prices. Dubai's economy roared back and has grown by a third since then, buoyed by foreign trade, tourism and its status as the main regional hub for business services.
Now, however, Dubai is hitting another rough patch. Residential property prices have dropped by more than 15 per cent since late 2014 and are still falling. The stock market is down 13 per cent this year, the worst performance in the region.
Dubai issued 4,722 new business licences in the second quarter of 2018, down 26 per cent from the same period in 2016, the year when new licences peaked.
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The falls may be temporary, the result of an economic slowdown in the Gulf caused by low oil prices. But other figures suggest some of Dubai's traditional growth engines are losing steam, which could mean a long-term slump.
Growth in passenger traffic through Dubai's international airport has fallen to near zero this year, after 15 years of strong increases. Increasingly long-range aircraft may loosen Dubai's dominance as a travel hub connecting Asia and Europe.
Official data shows Dubai's population continues to expand, by 3.5 per cent to 3.08 million in the first half of 2018. But most of the growth in recent years has been in lower-paid construction and services jobs, not in higher-paid white-collar posts.
"Perhaps the era when one could move to Dubai to make one's wealth is passing," said Hasnain Malik, Dubai-based global head of equity research and strategy at Exotix Capital.
He said the city was increasingly attractive as a base for rich people from around the world who wished to enjoy their wealth.
But it is not clear that Dubai's transport industries and business zones can continue growing fast enough to attract, and retain, the number of foreign white-collar workers needed to support demand in its real estate market, Malik said.
Structural challenges
Economists see little risk of another financial crisis; after restructuring billions of dollars of debt, Dubai's state-linked companies are less leveraged than they were a decade ago.
Nor has headline economic growth slowed greatly. International Monetary Fund officials have estimated gross domestic product will expand over 3 per cent this year.
"The emirate continues to attract businesses and investors as a competitive hub for sustainable business development," Dubai's Department of Economic Development said in a statement this week, adding that licensing figures showed "continued investment in all vital economic sectors in Dubai".
But much of this year's growth is due to a big rise in state spending as Dubai builds infrastructure to host the Expo 2020 world's fair; its 2018 budget soared 19.5 per cent from 2017 to a record 56.6 billion dirhams ($15.4 billion). The government cannot keep boosting spending at that speed indefinitely.
Jim Krane, energy fellow at Rice University in Texas and author of "City of Gold: Dubai and the Dream of Capitalism", said the emirate faced structural challenges including an increasingly tough geopolitical environment.
In the past, Dubai thrived by keeping cordial relations with every country in the region, accepting trade and investment from all of them.
That has become impossible. Last year, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and other countries cut diplomatic and transport ties with Qatar, ending Dubai's role as a base for business with the small but super-rich country.
Goods that were once shipped to Qatar via Dubai now move via other countries, such as Oman or India; multinational firms use their European or US offices, not their Dubai operations, to handle business with Qatar.

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Meanwhile, the United States and Gulf allies, including the UAE, are trying to squeeze Iran's economy by reducing its financial and trade ties. The effort is more aggressive than Washington's previous attempt to isolate Iran several years ago, diplomats in the region say.
That matters because the UAE's exports and re-exports to Iran, the vast majority via Dubai, totalled $19.9 billion in 2017.
The chief executive of a foreign financial firm in Dubai said the emirate faced unprecedented competition from neighbouring countries for capital, as low oil prices forced those countries to develop their own non-oil industries.
Portfolio funds are already flowing from Dubai's stock market to Saudi Arabia's bourse. In coming years, direct investment may follow; US oilfield services firm McDermott International has said it expects to move business slowly from Dubai's Jebel Ali Port to a new Saudi facility by the mid-2020s.
Dubai is trying to shore up its competitive position. In the last few months, the government has said it will reduce municipal fees, scrap some aviation charges, freeze school costs and take other steps to aid foreign firms and residents.
Potentially the most far-reaching reform was announced by the UAE cabinet, chaired by Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum. It promised to permit 100 per cent foreign ownership of some UAE-based businesses, up from the current 49 per cent limit, and grant long-term residency visas of up to 10 years to foreign investors and some professionals.
That could make foreign investment in Dubai more attractive and, by helping foreigners plan on a long-term residence in the emirate, encourage them to buy homes.
But details of the new policy have not been released, and implementing it may be tricky. "Free zones" in Dubai already permit 100 per cent foreign ownership; they could suffer if they no longer have that right exclusively. And many UAE citizens make money as silent partners with foreign businessmen.
"To some extent, the economy is based on people renting out their passports - disrupting that could cause economic pain among the local population," the financial executive said.