EY is believed to have paid more than £100 million to settle the High Court claim brought by the administrators of NMC Health, a former FTSE 100 company that collapsed amid an alleged fraud scandal.
The big four audit firm and the healthcare provider reached a confidential settlement in February after a long-running legal battle. A new report by Alvarez & Marsal, the administrators, shows that NMC has received £105.5 million in relation to the resolution of litigation.
The administrators filed a claim against EY four years ago for breach of contract and duty of care, and negligence relating to EY’s audit work for NMC between 2012 and 2018. They were seeking £2 billion. EY had denied the claim.
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A spokesman for the administrators said: “NMC Health has resolved the claim it brought against its former statutory auditor, Ernst & Young LLP. The claim has been resolved without admission of liability. The settlement agreement and its terms otherwise remain confidential.”
EY, which confirmed in February that it was no longer in dispute with NMC’s administrators, was approached for comment. The firm has previously said that it “denies the claim in its entirety” and EY was “itself a … victim”.
Following the resolution of the claim, the administrators have repaid litigation funding of almost £48 million, along with an agreed litigation funding return of £22.2 million, the report states.
In late March, the administrators also reached a confidential settlement with an unnamed former director, and expects to receive £800,000.
This agreement is separate from a $5.4 billion fraud trial against Bavaguthu Raghuram Shetty, the founder of NMC, Prasanth Manghat, a former chief executive, and Bank of Baroda.
A trial started in Abu Dhabi in March alleging that Shetty and Manghat committed fraud against the company, and Baroda knowingly facilitated it. The trial is due to finish in July.
Alvarez & Marsal was appointed in 2020 after NMC, an international private healthcare company, was plunged into crisis following a report by Muddy Waters Research, a US short-seller, that raised accounting and governance issues.
An investigation by Freeh Group, a risk-management firm commissioned by NMC, led to the discovery of a $6.6 billion debt. NMC was based in the United Arab Emirates and operated in 19 countries including the UK, where it owned Aspen Healthcare.
At its peak in 2018, NMC was valued at £8.6 billion on the London Stock Exchange. The crisis wiped out investors and has led to claims totalling £3.4 billion from creditors. Operating companies of NMC exited administration in the UAE in 2022.
The administrator’s report said that it expects unsecured creditors to receive a dividend, but the size and timing will depend on the outcome of litigation. The fees estimate of Alvarez & Marsal has increased to £69.2 million.
Shetty has rejected the administrator’s claim, and said he “did not act dishonestly or in bad faith” and was “not enriched by transfers of monies into his accounts controlled by the fraudsters”.
A representative for Shetty has said he was “a victim of a sophisticated fraud”. Baroda has also denied the claims, arguing that “the idea that the bank’s employees would have colluded in the frauds … over a number of years is inherently improbable”.
Manghat has previously denied any wrongdoing.