Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Manchester City’s Emirati chair was granted diplomatic immunity six years ago in a move that could complicate any legal action resulting from findings that the Premier League club artificially inflated its finances by more than £900mn. Khaldoon al-Mubarak, a senior Abu Dhabi official who has chaired City since 2008, was placed on the UK’s official list of approved diplomats in 2020.
This automatically confers immunity from any criminal investigation and in most cases shields the person from civil proceedings on UK soil. The Premier League said on Tuesday that an independent commission had found City guilty of all charges relating to serious breaches of its financial rules, following an investigation that was launched in 2018. The club, owned by a member of Abu Dhabi’s royal family since 2008, “concealed the true state of its finances from its auditors and football regulators” to circumvent spending limits between 2009 and 2018, the league said.
City strongly denies the charges and will appeal against the decision. The findings, if upheld, could open the door to further legal proceedings, which has been a source of concern for City, according to two people familiar with the situation. This could include civil action from other Premier League clubs that believe they have lost out on the pitch as a result of City’s actions.
There is also the potential for criminal investigations by the Serious Fraud Office, the police or other agencies, according to lawyers not involved in the case. Man City play Sunderland in a Premier League fixture in September© Matt McNulty/Getty Images There is no suggestion of personal wrongdoing by Mubarak, who is one of the United Arab Emirates’ president’s most trusted advisers and is also the chief executive of Abu Dhabi’s sovereign fund, Mubadala. One senior UK government figure said it would be “very odd” if somebody in Mubarak’s position did not have diplomatic status, given that he has chaired Abu Dhabi’s Executive Affairs Authority, the equivalent of the UK’s Cabinet Office, since 2006.
Mubarak’s diplomatic immunity could complicate follow-up legal action against the club, according to lawyers, as it largely protects an individual from being sued or charged in a criminal probe in the country where he or she is an emissary. If the SFO were to pursue a criminal case, it would be required to do so under fraud laws that applied at the time of the alleged wrongdoing and that require prosecutors to prove the “directing mind” of the corporate entity was complicit. Nick Vamos, former head of extradition at the Crown Prosecution Service, said that as well as having full protection from criminal prosecution, Mubarak “would also have immunity from civil actions relating to his ‘official functions’.” He added that “there could be some debate about whether the activities in question were part of those functions or purely private matters”.
The independent commission found City used a private company controlled by owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who also holds senior roles in the UAE’s government, to dramatically augment fees paid by legitimate commercial sponsors. The club’s chief executive, Ferran Soriano, said on Tuesday that the “whole Premier League case against us is based on a single false accusation: that the owners’ personal money was somehow and secretly put into the club via some sponsors from Abu Dhabi. Irrefutable evidence has been provided to the Premier League commission that shows this could not happen and that it did not happen.” Mubarak, who regularly attends City matches, said in a statement at the weekend: “While some people have been quick to reach their own conclusions, and there is so much noise swirling around us, nothing has changed.
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