As Irish hotelier Patrick McKillen tells it, he met the previous emir of Qatar on a yacht in Doha to debate a enterprise alternative in California, greater than 8,000 miles away.
McKillen and Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani had been discussing the acquisition of a Beverly Hills lodge, which McKillen mentioned he dedicated to managing and redeveloping.
Now that lodge — the Maybourne Beverly Hills — is on the heart of a civil racketeering grievance filed within the Central District of California on Tuesday, during which McKillen accuses Qatari royals of orchestrating “a worldwide scheme” to defraud him and his firm of lots of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} for work accomplished on a number of luxurious properties.
Within the lawsuit, McKillen, who reportedly co-owns a whiskey distillery with U2 frontman Bono, mentioned he and his staff “undertook a large redevelopment effort” on the Beverly Hills lodge — the place rooms go for greater than $1,000 an evening — over a two-year interval, however weren’t paid thousands and thousands of {dollars} allegedly owed for the work achieved.
McKillen, a citizen of Eire and the UK, introduced the grievance in opposition to senior members of the royal household, together with Hamad bin Khalifa; and Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, the previous prime minister referred to as “HBJ”; in addition to the household’s brokers, representatives and managed companies.
Within the grievance, which encompasses claims already being litigated in courts world wide, McKillen alleges that the schemes in opposition to him and his firm, Hume Avenue Administration Consultants Restricted, “are a part of a years’ lengthy sample of unlawful racketeering orchestrated by the Qatari royals and are in keeping with a historical past of illicit, lawless actions.”
McKillen’s legal professionals declined to remark.
“That is the most recent of many vacuous claims made by Paddy McKillen and related events throughout a number of jurisdictions, all of that are both on-going or have been struck out by the courts,” the Qatari-owned Maybourne Resort Group mentioned in an announcement. “As with the opposite claims, we are going to contest this newest declare and show the allegations to be fully false.”
The federal lawsuit filed in Los Angeles is the most recent motion taken by McKillen in his long-running authorized dispute with the Qatari royal household, a battle that has made headlines world wide. He has filed actions within the U.S., France and the UK.
The Maybourne Beverly Hills can also be the topic of a breach of contract lawsuit that was filed by McKillen’s firm in Los Angeles County Superior Courtroom in 2022. That court docket denied a movement by the corporate that owns the lodge to drive McKillen’s firm into arbitration. The choice is underneath enchantment.
“It seems that Mr. McKillen would like to litigate within the press moderately than proceed the actions he initiated in the USA, UK, and France and await their end result,” Jason D. Russell, who’s representing Hamad bin Jassim in California actions, mentioned in an e-mail. “Our shopper stays assured that these claims, just like the myriad others he has filed, shall be discovered to lack benefit in a court docket or by an arbitrator.”
Earlier this 12 months, the Excessive Courtroom in London put aside McKillen’s firm’s permission to serve a declare on Hamad bin Jassim outdoors of the jurisdiction, discovering it had failed to indicate an actual prospect of success, in keeping with court docket paperwork. The declare, for round £3.6 million (about $4.8 million), was tied to the event of a personal house in London for Hamad bin Jassim. The corporate’s enchantment was refused earlier this month, in keeping with British court docket data.
McKillen was additionally convicted in Paris earlier this 12 months of being bodily and verbally aggressive to a bailiff who was in his condominium within the metropolis due to the alleged nonpayment of a mortgage to the Luxembourg-based Quintet Personal Financial institution.
McKillen’s legal professionals instructed the Irish Instances that their shopper “vigorously denies any violence or any wrongdoing” in opposition to the bailiff and claimed the allegations in opposition to him had been “false.” McKillen, who was reportedly fined €10,000 (about $11,377) over the incident, has appealed the conviction.
By the point the Qatari royal household approached McKillen in regards to the California lodge in 2019, he mentioned, he had been engaged on initiatives with them for years.
Based on the federal grievance filed in California, in 2004, McKillen acquired shares in a bunch of luxurious accommodations that got here to be referred to as the Maybourne Resort Group. Regardless of later promoting his shares within the group to an organization owned by Hamad bin Jassim, McKillen mentioned he continued to handle and redevelop the Maybourne Resort Group and its accommodations on the path of the royals.
Hamad bin Khalifa later acquired an curiosity within the Maybourne Resort Group, in keeping with the grievance.
McKillen mentioned he and his firm had been tasked with the administration and redevelopment of the refurbishment of a Manhattan mansion owned by Hamad bin Jassim in 2018; the development and growth of a brand new Parisian lodge on the location of the historic Îlot Saint-Germain constructing in 2019; and the administration and redevelopment of the newly branded Maybourne Beverly Hills lodge in 2019.
McKillen alleges that for every of these initiatives, the Qatari royals instructed him he can be compensated by means of charges for providers carried out, however that sooner or later, “the Qatari Royals determined, in secret, that they’d not, in actual fact, be compensating Mr. McKillen or HSMC.” McKillen alleged within the grievance that he and his firm had been strung alongside “underneath false representations” that they’d be paid.
The grievance detailed the October 2019 assembly on a yacht in Doha, Qatar, between McKillen and Hamad bin Khalifa to debate the chance for the royal household to amass the California lodge, then referred to as the Montage Beverly Hills.
McKillen mentioned he offered a imaginative and prescient for the lodge to Hamad bin Khalifa and “gave his dedication to handle and strategically redevelop” it. A holding firm owned by Hamad bin Khalifa bought the lodge later that 12 months, in keeping with the grievance.
Within the grievance, McKillen mentioned a consultant of the household confirmed that he and his firm can be compensated with charges paid for work carried out on the lodge. Through the subsequent two years, McKillen mentioned, he and his staff transitioned the lodge to the Maybourne model and led the lodge’s growth and administration.
In July 2021, in keeping with the grievance, McKillen submitted a charge proposal to an advisor to the Al Thani household, stating that his firm was owed $6 million in challenge administration charges on an annual foundation, to be paid quarterly, from January 2020 to January 2025. That proposal was “met with stonewalling by the Qatari Royals,” the grievance alleges. After months handed with no fee, McKillen mentioned, he wrote a letter to Hamad bin Khalifa and Hamad bin Jassim telling them in regards to the refusal to pay him charges owed and stating that he might not work on the challenge.
McKillen later despatched a further bill for $12 million in challenge administration charges for work carried out in California in 2020 and 2021, in keeping with the grievance. He alleges that none of these charges had been paid.
The Qatari royals are dealing with a separate authorized battle over the Maybourne Riviera, after French authorities sued them for allegedly breaching planning and environmental laws and illegally constructing on land uncovered to “seismic dangers,” in keeping with an Irish Instances article. The newspaper reported that, at a current listening to, a consultant for the Al Thani household blamed McKillen.
McKillen instructed that information outlet that the alleged breaches occurred two years after he was fired from the challenge in April 2022.
“The injury was achieved after we left,” he instructed the outlet. “The French state isn’t suing me, it’s suing the Qataris.”
