After 9 year, its over. Guy Hands, the UK financier whose ill-fated purchase and management of EMI effectively brought down the once major music group, has abandoned his $2.5 billion fraud claim against US bank Citigroup.
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At a special court hearing on Friday morning, lawyers for Guy Hand’s private equity fund Terra Firma announced that the case had been withdrawn. The unexpected shift comes 9 years after Citi had called in a $3.6 billion loan that it made to Hands to purchase the EMI music group. A New York jury had rejected Hands’ claim against Citi in 2010.
In separate statements reported by The Guardian, all of the parties weighed in on today’s action:
Judge Burton: “I’m sure this is the right result.”
Citi: “We have always maintained that the allegations made by Terra Firma were entirely baseless and that Citi, specifically David Wormsley, Michael Klein and Chad Leat, acted at all times with absolute honesty and professional integrity throughout the EMI transaction.”
Guy Hands: “…It has become evident that our documentation of the fast-moving and complex events, and memories of these events after nine years, are no longer sufficient to meet the high demands of proof required for a fraud claim in court. The matter is now closed.”