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Another little-noticed case involves even more serious charges. The complaint, filed in Manhattan federal court, accuses Investcorp and five of its board members, as well as other defendants, of fraud and extortion. According to the complaint, the defendants tried to loot the Saudi European Bank, an Arab-owned institution in Paris. The lawsuit was filed by the bank's former parent company, headed by Syrian-born banker Jamal Radwan. The complaint charges that several defendants concocted a scheme for Investcorp to take over Saudi European Bank. In addition, Kirdar allegedly threatened to persuade other banks to stop doing business with Radwan's. Some of the individuals named in the complaint are also accused of trying to bribe and threaten Radwan to get him to approve "uneconomic and illegal loans and business transactions for their personal benefit." A few of these individuals drained money out of the bank, the complaint alleges, "by making fraudulent statements and presenting false and misleading financial information," leading to bad loans. In 1989 Saudi European nearly collapsed, and in order to avert a financial crisis, French authorities arranged for an investment group to take it over. According to the lawsuit, fraudulent borrowing and other misconduct by the defendants had crippled the bank. Investcorp and several other defendants have filed motions to dismiss the complaint. A number of them are also plaintiffs in continuing litigation against Radwan in which they accuse him of swindling them out of several million dollars. (In fact, Radwan conceived his own lawsuit as a "counterattack.") He denies the allegations.
The Saudi European suit, according to Investcorp general counsel Lawrence Kessler, is "completely without merit, and we expect to see it dismissed." (Other defendants deny all charges). When TIME asked Kirdar to comment on the litigation, he not only rejected the charges but also said he barely knew Radwan and doubted he had ever spoken more than "15 words" to him. Both men, however, worked for Chase Manhattan in the Middle East in the '70s and, says Radwan, both attended management meetings. Radwan supplied Time with a photograph of himself with Kirdar taken in Switzerland in 1988.