Winsome says won two more cases against defaulters

Troubled firm Winsome Diamonds and Jewellery, which owes a clutch of banks over Rs 6,800 crore, today informed BSE that it has won two more legal cases against its defaulters.
The company said the favourable orders came from the Sharjah Federal Court of First Instance.
The company had filed cases against 13 of its large defaulters in the UAE. Winsome said it has already submitted the details of 11 earlier cases to the exchanges.
The company said the Sharjah Court has dismissed the petition of Al Razin Jewellery FZE and Al Faheem Jewellery FZE and ordered them to pay USD 27.23 million or its dirham equivalent with 5 per cent interest to the appellant (Winsome), Harshad Udani, an executive director of the company, said in an exchange filing.

Of the total Rs 6,800 crore of debt, Winsome owes Rs 4,680 crore to a consortium of lenders headed by Standard Chartered Bank. Its associate firm Forever Precious Diamonds and Jewellery owes another Rs 2,121.82 crore to a set of banks led by PNB.
Once a top diamond firm, Winsome, promoted by Jatin Mehta, is fighting cases filed by the ED and CBI. Its troubles started in January 2013, when 13 of its UAE-based distributors controlled by a Jordanian national failed to pay Rs 4,760 crore to the company, according to its 2012-13 annual report.

Following this, four foreign banks led by Standard Chartered, encashed the bank guarantees worth Rs 4,000 crore.

As the troubles mounted and the company failed to service its debt, many banks got the company and promoter Mehta declared 'wilful defaulters' as forensic audits showed the firm had siphoned off funds.
The Winsome counter closed unchanged at Rs 0.70 on the BSE, whose main gauge Sensex closed 0.5 per cent up.