A BUSINESSMAN behind one of the county’s most prestigious hotels has been made bankrupt after a long-running, continent-spanning legal saga.

But the order against Tony Said Hamed, owner of Holme Lacy House, may not be the end of a case that went all the way to the UK Supreme Court over a property sale that turned sour.

Mr Hamed told the Hereford Times that he had applied to have the judgement in default set aside or varied at a future hearing and “fully expected” to be successful.

Mr Hamed, who also has a home in Holme Lacy, is believed to be back in his native Egypt, where he has substantial business interests, having attended the bankruptcy hearing at Hereford County Court last Wednesday.

His company Bindi Ltd bought Holme Lacy House at auction in 1992 and it is leased to Warner Leisure as a luxury hotel.

Warner Leisure told the Hereford Times that it was “not in a position” to comment on the bankruptcy order.

The case, brought by another Hereford businessman Jeremy Stevens, established the jurisdiction of English courts over a claim seeking the recovery of sums paid for the purchase of an Egyptian property.

Mr Stevens claimed that in January 2007 he transferred the sum of US $300,000 to Mr Hamed’s account at the Commercial International Bank, El Gouna, Egypt on the basis that Mr Hamed would hold the money pending the formalities of the proposed sale.

It was said that the money was repayable ‘on demand’ or in the event of a ‘failure of purpose’.

Mr Stevens claimed Mr Hamed failed to transfer the title of the property and sought to recover the sums transferred and the case came before Birmingham District Registry  in 2011.

Mr Hamed challenged the court’s jurisdiction over the proceedings, saying the claim raised a disputed question of title to foreign land.

That claim was dismissed in Birmingham and the case went to the Court of Appeal last year.

There, Mr Hamed claimed that the Egyptian property was actually owned by a company called Camarin Holdings Ltd incorporated in the British Virgin Islands.

Court documents confirm Mr Hamed as the sole director of Bindi (London) Limited which, he said, acted as an agent for Camarin, that, the court heard, was also the sole shareholder of Bindi.

The court considered that although there “is no explicit statement” as to who was ultimately behind Camarin, the evidence suggested “no great distance”  between Camarin and Mr Hamed.

Mr Hamed told the court that he undertook to act as agent for Camarin so the purchase price for the property could be paid  into his personal bank account in Egypt so he could transfer the sum to Camarin.

The court heard that the money was paid into Mr Hamed’s account but, because he did not have a US$ account, the sum was put into a suspense account and converted by the bank into sterling to be put into his sterling account.

The money was then transferred by Mr Hamed to Camarin.

As such, Mr Hamed said that he fulfilled all his obligations regarding his “limited” involvement and,  as far as he was aware, the property transaction appeared to have completed in accordance with Egyptian law.

He submitted that Egypt was the most appropriate forum for a claim that arose out of an agreement made in Egypt, to buy Egyptian property and sought recovery of money paid into an Egyptian account to an Egyptian national.

Subsequently Camarin purported to sell the property to a third party, the court heard.

The court refused to stay the proceedings, ruling that the purchase was never completed so the claim did not relate to title to “foreign” land and an English court could have jurisdiction where the claim amounted to “unjust enrichment”.

Mr Hamed, the court said, had not identified any principle of Egyptian law different from English law which was relevant to the issues for determination.

He was ordered to pay Mr Stevens’ costs towards the appeal.

The ruling was upheld by the UK Supreme Court in March this year.

There, Mr Hamed was refused further leave to appeal as “not raising an arguable point of law” and ordered to pay costs.

Last Wednesday, Mr Hamed was at Hereford County Court to hear  District Judge Roger Sheldrake order that he be adjudged bankrupt on a petition from Mr Stevens.