The delicate dilemma of suing auditors or legal advisors came to the fore in 2025 in several courtroom battles involving CEEMEA debt issuers covered by Debtwire.

Aircraft stranded after a war or default has also been a common thread during the year, while Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine keeps shaping headlines on how practitioners approach payments and restructuring.

This year has seen a claim against Linklaters over its advice to Finablr, a marathon trial on the NMC Healthcare case, a bitter battle between Getir and its investor Mubadala, VTB Bank’s appeal to a sanctions licence amendment, and two landmark rulings on insurance for aircraft stranded in Russia and on fraud at Ukraine’s Privatbank.

Under your watch

The much-awaited trial on the GBP 2.4bn lawsuit brought by the administrators of Emirati healthcare provider NMC against its former auditor Ernst & Young for failing to spot massive fraud within the group finally took place in 2025, ending on 21 October.

The run-up to the trial was marked by disclosure issues, particularly regarding a settlement agreement that NMC administrators reached in the UAE with former NMC shareholders Khaleefa and Saeed Bin Butti, allegedly involved in the fraud and considered politically influential in the UAE.

While NMC sought in the trial to highlight glaring failures in EY’s and its Middle East branch’s work, the auditor defended itself by arguing that the alleged fraudsters made every effort to avoid being detected.

In its closing submissions, EY complained that NMC is unfairly suing the Big Four firm instead of chasing obvious targets, and hinted that NMC was avoiding suing people linked to Emirati royal Sheikh Mansour. The judgment by Dame Clare Moulder on the case is pending.

NMC Healthcare founder, Indian businessman Bavaguthu Raghuram Shetty, also faced court battles. This year, the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) courts ordered Shetty to pay USD 33m to Bank of Baroda, USD 154m to ICICI Bank, USD 46m to State Bank of India – all under personal guarantees.

Bank of Baroda, however, is not free from lawsuits itself. Two claims by creditor Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank and NMC against NMC’s former management and Bank of Baroda will go to trial in March 2026 before the Abu Dhabi Global Markets court, with Bank of Baroda facing claims of fraud or, at minimum, “gross negligence”.

In November, that court cleared the way for NMC administrators to access Bank of Baroda’s confidential “suspicious conduct reports,” a move previously barred by law.

Separately, a fresh lawsuit against a professional services provider surfaced in October, this time targeting a law firm. Linklaters faces a negligence claim over advice it gave to fallen fintech Finablr – the owner of Travelex and UAE Exchange – and which was also founded by Shetty in 2018.

Linklaters acted as Finablr’s legal advisor on its London IPO in May 2019. Just 10 months later, the fintech was suspended from trading after revelations of USD 1.3bn undisclosed debt, pointing to widespread fraud.

On 6 October, the High Court in London gave the green light for the lawsuit to proceed, rejecting Linklaters’ petition to strike it out.

Also in November, the London court appointed additional ‘conflict’ liquidators for Travelex Bank Notes to investigate potential claims, following a request by unsecured creditor Rawbank SA. The judge found that the three existing PricewaterhouseCoopers liquidators were “plainly in a position of actual or at the very least perceived conflict”.

Entities crumbling under fraud and professional negligence claims are also present in the Abraaj case. The private equity group, founded by Arif Naqvi and once managing USD 14bn in assets, collapsed in 2018 and is now in liquidation. It has also taken auditor KPMG to the DIFC court for failing to spot the fraud.

Although a nine-week trial on the case was scheduled to start in October 2026, it has recently been postponed to 2027. It is expected to be the longest ever conducted in the DIFC courts.

Abraaj’s woes have also sparked a fierce battle across the Cayman Islands, England, and Pakistan for the control of one of the group’s biggest investments, a company called KES Power that holds a 66.4% stake in K-Electric, the sole electricity supplier of Pakistan’s most populous city Karachi.

Grounded

In 2025, a resolution arrived in the USD 4bn “lessor policies” claims by aircraft lessors against insurers over who should foot the bill for 147 jets retained by Russian airlines after the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. On 11 June, a London judge made it clear: insurers must pick up the tab.

After a string of settlements, the claimant camp still includes the world’s largest aircraft lessor, American-Irish AerCap, along with two lessors with smaller claims. Meanwhile, several defendants have asked the Court of Appeal for permission to challenge the June judgment.

Parallel proceedings over USD 10bn “operator policies” claims are underway in London’s High Court, with a 10-week trial set to start in October 2026. While the parties and the issues do not fully overlap, the course of that case has been heavily influenced by the 11 June judgment on the lessor policies.

A parallel aviation claim in London High Court targeted Senegal’s state-owned flag carrier. Air Senegal was sued this year by its Santander-controlled lessor after repeated payment defaults.

In August, the court ordered Air Senegal to return an aircraft serving the Dakar-Paris route to the lessor, which the airline did not do. The court made an ultimatum to Air Senegal in November: the airline should immediately apply for “relief from forfeiture” or face a judgment ordering the return of two jets plus a termination sum.

Invasion aftermath

Court battles stemming from Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing Western sanctions are far from over.

One of them centres on the debt workout for sanctioned bank VTB Capital (VTBC). Its parent and largest creditor, Russian state-owned VTB Bank, vigorously opposes an English scheme of arrangement proposed by VTBC’s administrators to navigate sanctions and assets trapped in Russia.

The relief of securing an amendment by the UK’s the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation that would help to bypass VTB Bank’s opposition was soon clouded by the Russian bank’s appeal to the amendment, which has delayed a sanction hearing of the scheme of arrangement yet again.

The London Administrative Court heard the case in November and this very morning (19 December), dismissed VTB Bank’s appeal. VTB Bank has also challenged the administrators’ conduct in dealing with its claim, with a hearing set for April 2026.

A separate dispute flared up in London between emerging markets investor Investment Capital Ukraine (ICU) and issuer EMIS Finance BV after ICU unilaterally replaced the trustee for two EMIS note series, in default since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The clash is complicated by EMIS’ ties to Sense Bank, now nationalised by the Ukrainian government.

After an October hearing, the High Court in London sided with EMIS, ruling that ICU had no right to appoint a new trustee. The judge however left the door open for ICU to ask the court to appoint a new trustee.

In a separate Ukraine-related case, a London judge finally ruled in July in favour of now-nationalised Ukrainian lender PrivatBank against its founders Igor Kolomoisky and Gennady Bogolyubov for siphoning USD 1.9bn from the bank. The judge took more than one and a half years to deliver judgment after a 2023 trial.

The court later held that PrivatBank is entitled to recover USD 3bn from the defendants, including interest.

Elsewhere in CEEMEA

Another bitter court battle in 2025 pitted the founders of Turkish rapid-delivery service Getir against its investor Mubadala, a sovereign wealth fund of the government of Abu Dhabi.

Facing serious financial trouble, Getir Dutch holding company executive directors decided in January to accept Mubadala’s offer to forgive debt and inject fresh funding in exchange for control of other group entities previously held by the founders following a June 2024 agreement.

Led by Nazım Salur, the founders turned to an Amsterdam court seeking an investigation into Getir’s holding company, but the Dutch judges rejected the request in January. A number of Mubadala-backed changes in Getir’s management ensued.

The Dutch Supreme Court was recently advised by the ‘Procureur Generaal’ to reject the founders’ appeal of the January ruling.

In the Cayman Islands, partners holding a combined 25.24% stake asked a court last September to wind up limited partnership Thalassa Investments.

Their claim asserts that Thalassa’s ownership and management structure hosts a tightly connected network of related parties, allowing UAE asset management and investment platform Shuaa Capital to exert control or influence over both the management and investor sides in the limited partnership.

Shortly after, Debtwire revealed that ex-Shuaa executives seeking to wind up Thalassa are themselves facing a legal claim from Shuaa in Dubai, but the claim was later dismissed at first instance.

Meanwhile, a London court largely backed oil field operator Tullow Ghana on preliminary issues in its dispute with French tube supplier Vallourec Oil and Gas France. The main case, still to be heard, concerns Tullow Ghana’s USD 257m claim that Vallourec supplied defective tubing.

Finally, Mozambique’s 2024 court victory over shipbuilder Privinvest in the “hidden debt” scandal will face review by the Court of Appeal, with a hearing set for June 2026. Alleged disclosure shortcomings are expected to be central to the appeal.