Oussama Ammar, cofounder of French startup accelerator The Household, has been discovered responsible for fraud and breach of fiduciary obligation in opposition to the organisation by a UK courtroom, and ordered to pay £6.48m (€7.56m) in damages, in line with a authorized ruling seen by Sifted.
The Household has suffered one among French tech’s ugliest startup fights in recent times, with a number of authorized proceedings filed in France, the UK and the Cayman Islands. The Household accuses Ammar, who left the corporate in 2022, of getting embezzled tens of millions from the organisation and its buyers. Ammar denies the accusations.
Final 12 months, the UK courtroom struck Ammar’s defence from proceedings after he didn’t adjust to a number of courtroom orders, together with requests to serve proof and pay excellent prices. This opened the best way for a judgement in favour of The Household. The most recent listening to, which was supposed to find out the quantity of damages to be paid, was not attended by Ammar.
Ammar tells Sifted the choice was obtained “by default” and was “non-adversarial”.
Nicolas Colin, Ammar’s cofounder and the primary consultant for the claimants, tells Sifted: “This was not a case the place [Ammar] was denied the prospect to interact with the method… Moderately, it’s a case the place, from a sure level onward, he repeatedly and voluntarily selected not to take action.”
Colin says that Ammar had not appealed the choice by the deadline, which means the judgement is ultimate.
“I’ll be ready for The Household within the exequatur process in France to implement this choice,” says Ammar, referring to the method by which nations authorise judgments made overseas, which is important to grab property overseas. Ammar says his property are in France.
The ruling follows one other choice in opposition to Ammar within the Cayman Islands in 2023, by which the courtroom ordered that he pay €7.3m in damages to The Household.
What’s Oussama Ammar accused of?
The Household was launched in 2013 by Ammar and Colin, together with cofounder Alice Zagury, and rapidly turned one among France’s most well-known startup incubators.
Over time the organisation expanded to create and handle particular funding automobiles (SPVs) that pooled buyers’ cash from all over the world to again particular startups, together with notable unicorns like PayFit and Algolia.
The Household opened a case in opposition to Ammar within the UK in 2022, shortly after he left the corporate. As a part of the UK case, the organisation accused Ammar of getting misappropriated as much as €1.1m of buyers’ funds, in addition to having made unauthorised funds of as much as €1.9m.
Ammar repeatedly denied the accusations, arguing the transactions mirrored a manner of working at The Household the place the road between private {and professional} funds was “unclear”.
The Household additionally accused Ammar of wrongfully utilizing buyers’ funds to buy shares in corporations at an inflated value to be able to divert funds to his private firm Fabuleo. This was completed through complicated schemes by which Ammar bought shares owned by Fabuelo as a substitute of investing immediately within the corporations. The Household claims that this precipitated a lack of almost €2m throughout 4 funding automobiles.
The courtroom’s order for Ammar to pay £6.48m (€7.56m) in damages accounts for the lack of funds, but additionally the estimated lack of revenue brought on by the failure to take a position the cash.
The Household vs Oussama Ammar
In 2022 The Household additionally launched a authorized process within the Cayman Islands accusing Ammar of getting embezzled almost €3.5m that was supposed to again six high-profile corporations together with Stripe, Airbnb and SpaceX.
Ammar didn’t take part within the authorized proceedings and a default judgement was made in opposition to him in 2022. In 2023, the courtroom issued a ultimate choice in opposition to Ammar and ordered him to pay €7.3m in damages to The Household.
Ammar tells Sifted that enforcement of the choice within the Cayman Islands has not taken place but. “Good luck with that,” he says.
Colin tells Sifted that exequatur procedures are underway in France to implement the Cayman Islands judgement, and that enforcement efforts have already begun in Delaware, the place Ammar additionally holds property.
A number of authorized proceedings are additionally underway in France, together with a prison process for which Ammar was reportedly taken into custody earlier this 12 months.
