Mallya appears on UK electoral rolls
April 24, 2016  16:50
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Liquor baron Vijay Mallya appears on the electoral rolls in the United Kingdom with his country home in Britain as his recorded address, a media report said today.

The 60-year-old, who strongly rejects any suggestion of wrongdoing and denies that he has deliberately absconded from India, has been living at a three-storey mansion called Ladywalk in the village of Tewin in Hertfordshire, just over a one-hour drive north of London.

According to The Sunday Times, Mallya confirmed that 'my official address in the UK is at Ladywalk', adding that he had supplied this information to the Indian authorities.

The 11.5-million-pound mansion was bought from the father of British Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton by a company with offshore links.

'The ownership structure of Ladywalk is perfectly legal,'  the newspaper quoted Mallya as saying.

Mallya told the newspaper there was no 'concealment or tax avoidance involved' and said that he has been a 'British resident' since 1992.

The report notes that official documents list the owner of Ladywalk as a limited liability partnership called Ladywalk LLP. It has two members, including a company called Continental Administration Services, which is registered in St. Kitts and Nevis, a Commonwealth country in the Caribbean regarded as a tax haven.

A loan to finance the property purchase in July 2015 was made by the Edmond de Rothschild private bank in Switzerland. Official papers name the borrower as Ladywalk Investments, a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, another tax haven.

Mallya has described an arrest warrant against him as 'erroneous and unjustified' and has recently tweeted: 'I fully respect and will comply with the law of the land.'

His passport, which had been suspended earlier, was also revoked today.
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