Mayfair Casino Fails To Recover Debts

The Clermont Club in Berkeley Square, owned by Grosvenor Casinos, has failed in its High Court attempt to recover a reported £7million from a prolific gambler.

The gambler, named as Ahmed al-Reyaysa, had gambled £99 million in 18 months, and accued millions of pounds worth of debt. He presented two cheques adding up to £7million, but the cheques weren't honoured. When Grosvenor Casinos failed to recover the money from al-Reyaysa, now in UAE, they turned their fire on his bank, the National Bank of Abu Dhabi.

The plaintiffs complained that they only accepted the cheque because NBAD assured their bank, the Natwest, that the payment would be honoured. The High Court rejected their complaint, with Mr Justice Flaux saying in a written statement, “It seems to me inherently improbable that [the NBAD employee] was lying . . . it is much more likely that he meant something slightly different from what [the NatWest employee] meant and understood.”

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