Mallya appears on UK electoral rolls: Report

According to 'The Sunday Times', Mallya confirmed that his official address in the UK is at Ladywalk

Liquor baron Vijay Mallya has appeared on the electoral rolls in the UK with his country home in Britain as his recorded address, a media report said on Sunday.

The 60-year-old, who strongly rejects any suggestion of wrongdoing and denies he has deliberately absconded from India, has been living at a three-storey mansion called Ladywalk in the village of Tewin  in Hertfordshire, just over a one-hour drive north of London.

According to The Sunday Times, Mallya confirmed that “my official address in the UK is at Ladywalk,” adding that he had supplied this information to the Indian authorities.

The £11.5-million mansion was bought from the father of British Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton by a company with offshore links. “The ownership structure of Ladywalk is perfectly legal,” the newspaper quoted Mallya as saying.

Mallya, however, told the newspaper there was no “concealment or tax avoidance involved” and said he has been a “British resident” since 1992.

The report notes official documents list the owner of Ladywalk as a limited liability partnership called Ladywalk.

It has two members, including a company called Continental Administration Services, registered in St Kitts and Nevis, a Commonwealth country in the Caribbean regarded as a tax haven.

A loan to finance the property purchase in July 2015 was made by the Edmond de Rothschild private bank in Switzerland.

Official papers name the borrower as Ladywalk Investments, a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, another tax haven.

Mallya has described an arrest warrant against him as “erroneous and unjustified” and has recently tweeted: “I fully respect and will comply with the law of the land.”

His passport, which had been suspended earlier, was also revoked today.

Mallya had left India on March 2. He has refused to appear before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on three occasions when summoned between March 10 and April 2.

ED has said it will also seek an Interpol arrest warrant against Mallya based on a non-bailable warrant issued last week by a Mumbai court in a money laundering case.