British firm the Broadsheet LLC, which has stirred up a lot of controversy recently when it won a damages case against the National Accountability Bureau for terminating a contract, has ended up making a payment of around 4.5 million rupees to the Sharif family in the lawsuit before the London High Court, reported 24News HD TV channel Tuesday.

The Broadsheet LLC has made a payment of Rs4.5 million to the Sharif family for the settlement of the Sharif family’s legal costs after having withdrawn the Avenfield Apartments attachment application before the English High Court for the seizure and sale of four Avenfield Apartments in the Broadsheet vs Pakistan/National Accountability Bureau (NAB) case.

The Broadsheet has to pay another Rs40million in the lawyers fee as well.

Lawyers acting for the Sharif family have confirmed that the payment has been received in their bank account whereas Broadsheet’s lawyers have also confirmed making the payment.

According to the Sharif family lawyers, the Broadsheet took back the case to avoid the humiliation in case of an evident defeat in the case. The lawyers said the Broadsheet has paid 20000 pounds to the Sharif family. They said the Sharif family was entitled to get up to 350000 pounds in damages yet they settled for the lesser amount to settle the matter at the earliest as the firm Broadsheet has filed for bankruptcy.

Broadsheet on 19 June 2020 started the process in the London High Court for the recovery of money awarded through two court judgments through the sale of four Avenfield Apartments. Before starting the attachment process, Broadsheet obtained arbitration awards from the Court of Arbitration against Pakistan/NAB for breach of contract and damages in the sum of nearly $29 million.

In late 2019, Broadsheet was granted permission by the English High Court to enforce these arbitration awards as if they were judgments of the High Court.

Broadsheet sought an Order on the basis that the Government of Pakistan held beneficial interests in the Avenfield Apartments pursuant to the judgment of the Accountability Court in Islamabad in the Avenfield Reference dated 6 July 2018 – convicting former PM Nawaz Sharif in the assets beyond means case.

Lawyers for the Sharif family said that from the outset, their position was that on well-established English legal principles, the Accountability Court Judgment, which has serious legal and factual flaws, did not vest any interest in the Avenfield Apartments and that it was, therefore, incapable of being enforced by the UK High Court.

On 2 December 2020, Broadsheet withdrew the case from the High Court whereas the Court made an order on the same day clearly discharging the Avenfield Apartments from any future proceedings.

Broadsheet stated that it withdrew the case for seizure and sale of the Avenfield apartments because it did not wish to proceed as it had secured its judgment debt by way of a separate Interim Third Party Debt Order but records show that Broadsheet had obtained an Interim Third Party Debt Order to freeze the High Commission’s accounts on 23 June 2020.

The lawyers said Broadsheet still wanted to recover $3million from Pakistan.

The Broadsheet LLC was hired by Pakistan in 2000 to trace and recover assets of chief ‘target’ Nawaz Sharif, his family members and around 170 other Pakistanis but the deal has ended up costing Pakistan over $65 million and no assets of Sharifs or anyone else was found – with the only exception of Admiral Mansoorul Haq.