Justice Kalpana Rawal’s family linked to 11 shell companies in tax haven

The family of Deputy Chief Justice Kalpana Rawal has been linked to 11 shell companies in a Caribbean tax haven.

But Rawal, who has been named in leaked documents alongside powerful world leaders such as Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin, says her husband listed her in the ownership documents without her knowledge.

The judge is one of the most prominent Kenyans named in the Panama Papers, a global investigation into the sprawling, secretive industry that the world’s rich and powerful use to hide assets and skirt rules by setting shadowy companies in far-flung jurisdictions.

Justice Kalpana Rawal. The family of the Deputy Chief Justice has been linked to 11 shell companies in a Caribbean tax haven. (PHOTO: FILE)

The leaked documents, published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICJ), come from the files of Mossack Fonseca, a Panama-based lawfirm.

According to the documents, Rawal was in charge of four firms while her husband Hasmukhrai Rawal was the director of seven other companies.

Three of the companies were used to buy and sell property worth millions of shillings in the United Kingdom.

Leaked files

In her defence, Rawal told the team of investigative journalists who worked on millions of leaked files that she did not even know she was listed as a shareholder of the companies.

The judge, who has been fighting an attempt by the Judicial Services Commission (JSC) to force her to retire from the Supreme Court, said she has not been involved with the family businesses except for generally knowing they were involved in real estate.

Rawal has two adult sons residing in London, both of whom are British subjects, run the business as per the laws applicable in the United Kingdom.

It is not illegal to own companies in tax havens, but the companies are used to clean and hide money earned from illegal or corrupt deals.

But Rawal is quoted in the dossier as having responded that she never had “any involvement direct or indirect and have no interest or control” in the other companies.

According to the documents put online, Rawal and her husband were the directors of Forrell Real Estate Ltd, a company that was incorporated in the British Virgin Islands in September 2001.

“There are no actions, pending or threatened, against the company and no resolutions have been passed for its voluntary winding up,” a certificate of incumbency issued to the company reads in part.

The certificate is among other documents such as her passport and minutes of resolutions and consent actions dated March 2014, which have so far been released.

Rawal and her husband resigned from Forrell Real Estate Ltd in May 2007.

It was at this meeting that it was also resolved that the registered office of the company be transferred to the premises of Commonwealth Trust Ltd in the British Virgin Islands. The Commonwealth Trust Ltd was the registered agent of the company.

The investigation is based on a trove of more than 11 million leaked files. It exposes a cast of characters who use offshore companies to facilitate bribery, arms deals, tax evasion, financial fraud and drug trafficking.

Behind the email chains, invoices and documents that make up the Panama Papers are often unseen perpetrators of wrongdoing enabled by this shadowy industry.

Other Kenyans named in the leakage are former directors of car dealer CMC Holdings, which was rocked by its own boardroom war after the accounts were discovered.

The documents also exposed the offshore holdings of 12 current and former world leaders.

They reveal how associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin secretly shuffled as much as Sh200 billion through banks and shadow companies.

According to analysis done by a team of journalists from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICJ), as much as Sh200 billion ($2 billion) has been secretly shuffled through banks and shadow companies linked to Putin’s associates.

Bank Rossiya, identified by the US as Putin’s personal cashbox, has been instrumental in building a network of offshore companies.

Dozens of loans, some worth hundreds of millions of dollars, are sold between offshore companies for as little as Sh100 ($1) or less.