Man forged partner's signature to sell company, Dubai court hears

The victim said he only discovered what had happened after a friend told him he met with the man who bought his business.

Powered by automated translation

A man forged his business partner’s signature on a document to sell his share of the business, Dubai Criminal Court hear.

The Emirati man — a 36-year-old policeman — allegedly had the document notarised by Dubai courts before using it to sell 25 cars belonging to the company.

He denied charges of forgery, use of a forged document and unlawfully selling and obtaining the value of a scrap trading company.

“I sold it based on a legal authorisation from my partner and I didn’t sell the cars which were not included in the company’s licence,” the defendant told the court on Monday morning.

The 51-year-old Pakistani victim told prosecutors the Emirati was not his business partner but only the sponsor of the business, as required by the Dubai Economic Development Department (DEDD).

“I started the business in 2011 and the defendant is paid Dh9,000 per year in return for his sponsorship,” the man said.

He said he only discovered what had happened when a friend told him he met with the man who bought his company in 2015.

“My friend came to visit me and told me that he was invited to a feast held by the man who bought my company, I was shocked and told him that I didn’t sell my company to anyone.”

The Pakistani man went to the DEDD to check the documents and was told his name had been removed from the company license and also that the name of the company had been changed.

DEDD also told him that 25 of the 41 cars that his company owned had been sold.

“I owned Dh2.2m worth of cars and he sold 25 of them valued at Dh1.3m,” he said.

The man was told that a signed authorisation form was used when selling his portion of the business.

He lodged a complaint with DEDD claiming he hadn’t signed any such authentication and that the Emirati was merely a sponsor of the business.

He also filed a report with police against the notary public employee who said he had not seen the document before notarising it.

“The defendant was notarising a number of documents and he must have hidden this one among them when I notarised them,” the court employee said.

The next hearing will be held on August 24.