Solomon and Rosa Lew. Illustration:John ShakespeareCredit:
For those new to the saga,the billionaire rag trader launched legal action against Nargolwala — who was selling the property in Phuket’s glitzy Andara Resort — after the banker sold to Larpin despite Lew verbally agreeing to purchase the villa several weeks earlier. Larpin had agreed to pay $US2.7 million more.
Still,it was hard to fathom why Lew was bothering with the lengthy legal proceedings. With a net worth of $2.8 billion,according to theFinancial Review’s Rich List,surely he could just purchase the entire resort?
But close observers of the legal proceedings in Singapore this month noted Lew had a good reason to covet Anadara Villa 29.
It’s where he proposed to his wife Roza Lew in April 2017.
British silkSimon Thorley QC,now on the Singapore International Commercial Court,handed down his 126-page judgement this week. His conclusion? A bungled transaction rather than an international act of treachery.
Thorley also provided a precis of each participant,describing Lew as a “forceful personality … such that he will drive a hard bargain and will not hesitate to use as a tactic supplying his opposite number with misinformation”.
And while he was “composed,clear,precise and firm in his beliefs” in the witness box,Thorley concluded “the commercial marketplace in which Mr Lew operates is not a place for the mealy mouthed or faint hearted”.
Larpin,on the other hand,“exhibited many of the stereotypical characteristics of an Italian”.