An English judge has ordered Athens-based ship manager Sam Tariverdi to pay $12.3m for secretly selling an ageing tanker belonging to a former business associate to pay off his own debts.
Tariverdi, the chief executive of Saint James Shipping, signed a deal with Iranian-born businessman Morteza Rajabieslami to manage the 106,100-dwt Arina (built 1999) but went behind his back to sell it for $7.4m for scrap in March 2022, the court ruled.
The UK and Greece resident had claimed that Rajabieslami signed over ownership of the vessel to settle an outstanding $9.8m bill for valuable Persian carpets purchased from Tariverdi from 2016 to 2019.
But Justice Andrew Bright said that the two men did not know each other at the time of the alleged rug sales and ruled that Tariverdi had forged eight invoices from a non-existent Iranian carpet trading company to try to justify his account of the tanker sale.
Based on the evidence of a handwriting expert, the judge found that Tariverdi copied Rajabieslami’s signature from a document relating to the management and ownership of the LR2 tanker and transposed it to the rug documents.
“The only conclusion I can come to is that the rug transaction documents are forgeries,” the judge wrote in an 18-page ruling.
Rajabieslami, who successfully secured a worldwide freezing order of Tariverdi’s assets in 2022, will now seek to secure the payout but is himself subject to US sanctions over alleged Iran oil trading.
It was not immediately clear if Tariverdi would appeal the English High Court ruling. He and his lawyer have been approached for comment. Calls to Saint James Shipping were not answered.
The judge wrote that the two men met in 2019 when Rajabieslami was acting for a United Arab Emirates-based Iranian oil and gas trader, Mahdieh Sanchouli, who was hunting for more oil tankers for her business.
Formation of special purpose vehicle Desero
The discussions between the two men resulted in a new Liberia-incorporated special purpose vehicle, Desero, controlled by Rajabieslami, buying the Vermilion Energy, which was renamed the Arina.
As part of the agreement, Saint James was paid $8,000 per day to act as technical and commercial manager for the vessel.
Within months of the agreement, Rajabieslami signed a document allowing Tariverdi to hold his shares of Desero as part of a plan to secure extra funding to buy more ships.
But Tariverdi secretly mortgaged the ship to use as security for an existing $34m loan, the court found.
The dispute between the two sides escalated after the US claimed the ship was being used to transport sanctioned Iranian oil.
They fell out over the destination for the cargo before the ship eventually discharged its oil in the Bahamas in December 2021 at the request of the US government. US authorities paid Desero and Saint James $5.1m for freight and demurrage costs.
The following month, Tariverdi through Desero struck a deal with scrapping specialist Last Voyage to sell the ship without the “knowledge and consent” of Rajabieslami.
The proceeds were mostly used to pay off some of Tariverdi’s debt, according to the ruling. The ship was not subsequently scrapped and is now operating as floating storage.
Substantial asset
Finding in favour of Rajabieslami, the judge said the Qatar-based businessman was entitled to recover the value of the ship and the profits made by Tariverdi and two companies he controlled from handing over the sanctioned cargo to the US.
Bright said he agreed with Rajabieslami’s argument that he “cannot have intended to gift the vessel to Mr Tariverdi: rational businesspeople do not give away what is in any view a very substantial asset without good reason”.
He said Tariverdi offered no credible reason.
In a statement, Rajabieslami said: “Whilst it has taken a considerable amount of time for the court to arrive at its judgment, we are very happy that justice has been done and Mr Tariverdi has been held to have both stolen the vessel and then subsequently forged documents to justify his actions.
“The truth has eventually prevailed.”
Sanchouli and Rajabieslami, now a St Kitts & Nevis national, were both blacklisted by the US in July 2022.
The US Office of Foreign Assets Control alleged that since 2019, the duo collaborated to export Iranian crude oil through a network of companies and vessels they controlled.
Shipping database Equasis lists Saint James Shipping as managing two ships.
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