British law firm appointed to fight S Alam case, to cost $1,250 per hour

The Government of Bangladesh has decided to appoint a British law firm to contest an international arbitration case, filed by S Alam Group founder Saiful Alam (S Alam) and his family before an international arbitration tribunal.

The government will pay the firm a fee of USD 1,250 per hour for its legal services.

On Tuesday, the advisory committee on government procurement, chaired by finance adviser Salehuddin Ahmed, approved the appointment of the law firm and the related expenditure at a meeting held at the Secretariat.

According to sources present at the meeting, the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs placed a proposal before the committee seeking approval to appoint an international law firm and procure legal services to handle arbitration case no-  ICSID (Case no ARB/25/52), filed against the Government of Bangladesh.

After reviewing the proposal, the advisory committee approved the appointment of the British law firm ‘White & Case LLP’.

The government will pay the firm USD 1,250 per hour for its services. However, the authorities have not clarified how they will calculate the billable hours.

Speaking to journalists after the meeting, finance adviser Salehuddin Ahmed said, “As you know, S Alam appears to have filed a case in London regarding money laundering and has challenged the matter at the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). We will appoint a lawyer to fight this legal battle against them. This involves a substantial amount of money.”

When asked which country and institution the government had appointed, he responded, “I cannot recall the name at this moment. It is a British firm.”

Referring to the measures against alleged money laundering by S Alam, the finance adviser said, “As you know, when a government or a company obstructs business activities, the World Bank’s ICSID conducts arbitration. ICSID has served us with a notice. We must respond and the matter is highly complex.”

In October last year, lawyers representing S Alam and his family formally filed an arbitration claim at ICSID, headquartered in Washington, DC.

The claim alleges that the Government of Bangladesh caused losses amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars by seizing and confiscating assets and imposing other punitive measures on allegations of illegal money laundering.

In their application, the S Alam family alleged that the interim government deliberately targeted them by freezing bank accounts, confiscating assets, conducting what they described as “baseless” investigations into their business activities, and orchestrating a “provocative media campaign”.

They claimed that these actions violated international investment treaties.

S Alam and his family filed the arbitration case under the 2004 Bangladesh–Singapore Bilateral Investment Treaty.

According to the documents, the family renounced Bangladeshi citizenship in 2020 and acquired Singaporean citizenship between 2021 and 2023. They currently reside in Singapore.

The family has claimed that, as Singaporean citizens, they are entitled to international investment protection. They have also sought protection under Bangladesh’s Foreign Private Investment (Promotion and Protection) Act, 1980.

Following the mass uprising on 5 August 2024, which led to the fall of the government headed by Sheikh Hasina, an interim government led by professor Muhammad Yunus assumed office.

Since then, the government has launched investigations and asset recovery initiatives against several large industrial groups and influential business figures on allegations of large-scale money laundering.

An economic white paper published by the interim government in December 2024 estimated the total amount of money laundered out of the country at approximately USD 234 billion.

Ahsan H Mansur, governor of Bangladesh Bank and head of the task force formed to recover laundered funds, stated that the S Alam family alone had transferred nearly USD 12 billion abroad.

He also said that S Alam and his associates took control of multiple banks and moved funds overseas through loan fraud and import-related irregularities.