A legal case alleging that the Thai owner of Leicester City, King Power, criminally engaged in corruption worth £327m has been dismissed by a court in Bangkok. The lawsuit, brought by a former anti-corruption official, alleged that King Power corruptly withheld from the Thai government an agreed share of income from its duty-free franchise at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport. King Power has always denied the allegations.
Owned and run by the Leicester chairman, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, and his son Aiyawatt, King Power has made fortunes from the franchise, which it was awarded in 2006 when the Thai government was headed by the prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. King Power bought Leicester for a reported £39m in 2010 and bankrolled the club to win promotion and claim the spectacular Premier League title win in 2016.
The company had said it “categorically denied” the corruption allegations and would be fighting the case, saying it was “absolutely committed to the highest standards in proper and ethical business practice”.
Chanchai Issarasenarak, the former deputy chairman of a government anti-corruption subcommittee, had brought the case in a personal capacity against King Power and 14 officials of the Airport of Thailand (AOT). He alleged that King Power and one of its executives had colluded with the airport officials to pay only 3% of its revenues to the Thai government, in breach of the franchise requirement to pay 15%, a loss of 14bn baht, £327m.
A judge in Bangkok’s central criminal court for corruption and misconduct cases dismissed the proceedings on the basis that Chanchai, bringing the case personally, could not have been damaged himself by the alleged corruption if it had taken place.
The court found that Chanchai bought shares in AOT in November 2015, which was a year after the agreement he alleged was made to short-change the government. The court ruled that even if the arrangement did happen, which King Power denies, the short-changing would not be classed as a “continuous crime” and as Chanchai was not a shareholder at the time, he could not personally have been an “injured party”.
Chanchai told reporters after the hearing that he will consider appealing, or submitting his documentation to the national anti-corruption commission.
