Courts raise Mallya’s weekly spending limit to £18,000

Vijay Mallya, the former head of India’s United Spirits facing extradition proceedings in London, has been given a ‘raise’ to fund his lavish lifestyle.

The self-styled “King of the Good Times” has been told by the high court in London that he can increase his weekly spending limit from £5,000 to £18,325. He is also allowed an unlimited amount to fund his legal expenses.

However, Mallya’s global assets of up to £1.145 billion remain frozen under a court order from India which is being enforced by the UK authorities.

Mallya, 62, has applied to have the freeze order discharged and a hearing will take place at the high court on April 16 and 17.

The judgment, which 13 Indian banks successfully registered last November with the English courts under the Foreign Judgments (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act of 1993, says he owes £1.145 billion including interest, to the creditor banks. The freeze is an interim measure until that judgment is enforced.

If that judgment is upheld, the courts can either seize those assets and give them to the banks or sell them and give them the proceeds .

The creditor banks also obtained freeze orders to the same value on the assets of companies connected to Mallya. They are Rose Capital Ventures Ltd, registered in the British Virgin Islands, and Orange India Holdings SARL, which is based in Luxembourg, and which owns and operates Mallya’s Force India Team. Also affected by the freeze order is Ladywalk LLP.

Ladywalk Investments, registered in the British Virgin Islands, lent Ladywalk LLP £7.2 million in 2015 to buy Mallya’s mansion in Tewin, Hertfordshire. The property is in a road named Lady Walk.

He fled there in March 2016 just hours before warrants for his arrest were issued in India.

Mallya’s co-defendants have also applied to have the freezing orders discharged.

Meanwhile, the next hearing on whether to extradite Mallya to face trial in India will take place in mid-March when Westminster Magistrates will rule on the admissibility of evidence supplied by the country’s law enforcement agencies which purports to show that he deliberately defrauded the banks and laundered money lent by them to his failed Kingfisher airline.

Earlier this week a Singapore court awarded Mallya’s creditors in the country $90 million in respect of debts owed from the collapse.

Mallya has consistently denied any wrongdoing and that he is the victim of a political witch hunt In India.