Calcutta court warns to issue arrest warrant against UpHealth officials in conspiracy to defraud Glocal Healthcare

A criminal court in West Bengal has taken cognizance of a chargesheet filed by the Anti-Cheating & Fraud Section, CID, West Bengal, against UpHealth Inc., UpHealth Holdings Inc and its officials, including Avi S Katz, Raluca Dinu, Martin Samuel Arthur Beck, Ramesh Balakrishnan, Ranjini Ramakrishna and Ajay Arora in alleged in conspiracy to defraud Glocal Healthcare.

The Court also warned against issuing arrest warrant against several accused while noting that the said accused persons never appeared before the Police authorities.

Their presence needs to be secured for the purposes of trial of this case, said the court.

Recently, a chargesheet has been filed for Criminal Breach of Trust, Cheating, commission of Criminal conspiracy, etc.

After taking cognizance the CJM, Barasat, vide order dated May 29, 2024, held that "the chargesheet discloses the commission of serious offences by the Accused persons" and that "a warrant of arrest is required to be issued against" the accused persons.

The matter arises out of an FIR registered by Glocal Healthcare Systems Pvt Ltd before the Technocity Police Station in West Bengal alleging commission of criminal offences by the UpHealth consortium in relation to a Share Purchase Agreement executed between UpHealth & Glocal in the year 2020.

UpHealth invoked an ICC arbitration in which Glocal did not participate on the grounds, amongst others, that this is a matter of Indian Company Law and the exclusive forum for any such litigation is the NCLT.

The chargesheet places reliance on forensic evidence and concludes that "there is reason to believe that the above-noted accused persons, by giving false assurances regarding their financial capabilities, intentionally deceived the complainant into believing that they has sufficient funds amounting to USD 507 million to invest in the Complainant's company.This deception dishonestly induces the complainant to enter into a contract with the accused companies.

It is believed that the accused persons, by making false representations and statements, misled the International Court of Arbitration of the ICC into issuing an ex-parte final award against the complainant's company, causing USD 110.2 million in damages to the complainant's company and it has also caused injury to the reputation of the complainant's company."