Dubai court lifts travel ban on British-Pakistani shipping tycoon yet to settle UK case

Submitted by Oscar Rickett on Thu, 09/17/2026 - 12:30 UAE-based Muhammad Tahir Lakhani and his son were found liable for deceit by a UK court in 2024

Muhammad Tahir Lakhani (c) pictured with his son Muhammad Ali Lakhani (l) and one other associate or family member (Facebook) Off

A UAE-based father and son found liable for deceit and conspiracy in a UK fraud case have had their travel ban lifted by a Dubai court, according to documents seen exclusively by Middle East Eye.

In 2024, British citizens Muhammad Tahir Lakhani and Muhammad Ali Lakhani were found liable for deceit at the commercial court in London, which deals with business disputes, in respect to false representations made to secure a $45m loan for Astir Maritime, a company ultimately owned by them and another family member.

The British-Pakistani father and son admitted to making up excuses as to why they had not paid back lenders.

They have not settled the case, and in 2025 the United Arab Emirates issued a travel ban for the father and son.

But following a request made by the Lakhanis, that ban was lifted on 26 August, according to the Dubai court documents seen by MEE.

While the Lakhanis told the Dubai court they needed to be free to travel in order to conduct business properly and meet their debts, lenders to the family are understood to be worried that they will flee to Pakistan, where the family has its origins.

Muhammad Tahir Lakhani, who was born in Karachi, did not respond to Middle East Eye’s request for comment and did not reply when asked if he intended to leave the UAE.

The family’s Dubai-based legal representative did not respond to MEE’s questions.

Dubai-based shipping business

The British court heard in 2024 that the loan for Astir Maritime was allegedly required to support the ship-recycling business during a downturn in trade and the market.

The company is one of a portfolio of UAE-based shipping and ship recycling businesses linked to the British-Pakistani family, which has been largely based in Dubai for decades.

'The removal of the travel ban is of grave concern and contradictory'

- Source familiar with Lakhani case

The money was intended to be used to buy ageing vessels that could be sold to shipyards and broken down into parts.

The case against Astir Maritime for fraud was brought by lenders led by London-based firm Njord Partners Sma-Seal LP. The case has not been settled and the Lakhanis have remained in Dubai.

The UK Home Office told Middle East Eye it could not comment on individual cases.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office appeared to refer to the Lakhanis when it said that it had not been approached for consular support but stood ready to be of assistance.

Geraldine McCafferty, Britain’s new ambassador to the UAE, is aware of the situation, sources close to the case told MEE.

Money owed to lenders

“The removal of the travel ban is of grave concern and contradictory,” a source familiar with the case told MEE, referring to lenders - including pension fund managers - owed money, as well as to broader questions of public interest.

“The Lakhanis have argued that restrictions prevent them from arranging their financial affairs and settling the judgement they owe their creditors.

“Yet while those same travel bans were in force, they paid $5m to settle separate enforcement proceedings and subsequently offered AED 15-20m ($4m-$5.5m) as a lump sum settlement in relation to outstanding claims from the 2024 High Court ruling.”

'He [Tahir Lakhani] has played a critical role in advocating the UAE as an essential zonal and global centre for maritime trade and logistics'

- Thrive Global

This, the source said, contradicted the suggestion that travel restrictions put in place to safeguard against the Lakhanis leaving the UAE had prevented them from arranging their finances.

As businessmen operating companies that have a global presence, the Lakhanis have argued otherwise.

The 2024 judgement against the Dubai-based family follows a 2020 case in which UK courts issued worldwide freezing orders against Muhammad Tahir Lakhani and his sons after another set of lenders to some of the family’s ship recycling businesses accused them of fraud.

During that case, the court heard that Tahir Lakhani was an “internationally recognised visionary shipping executive” who had set up Dubai Trading Agency, the “first company based in the Middle East to start buying ships for recycling”.

The lenders were awarded $77m by the British court in 2020. In 2025, the Lakhanis struck a deal that left investors with a $5m recovery in a settlement that Tahir Lakhani described as “amicable”.

Shadow fleets and Emirati leadership

In 2024, the Financial Times identified a Lakhani-owned firm as being involved in Russia’s “shadow fleet” – the ships used by Moscow to evade western sanctions.

In a statement to the FT, Tahir Lakhani, who was described by the newspaper as a controversial figure in shipping, said he “never had any involvement or facilitated the breach of any sanctions”.

Born in 1962 in Karachi, the family patriarch is described by Greek-American media mogul Ariana Huffington’s technology company Thrive Global as having played a “critical role in advocating the UAE as an essential zonal and global centre for maritime trade and logistics”.

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Tahir says he played tennis for Pakistan in the Davis Cup – the Thrive Global biography calls him the “youngest tennis player ever to feature for his country” at the international tournament – and got his start in the shipping business as a supervisor in a Pakistani ship recycling yard owned by a family friend.

Tahir married his wife Uneza in 1985, inheriting a stake in a Dubai-based trading business from her father. The couple renamed the company Dubai Trading Agency and by the late 1990s it was, according to the FT, one of the biggest ship recyclers in the world.

At that point, the firm said it was buying and selling, for cash, over 100 ageing vessels a year. While Tahir lived in London with his family from 2000-2009, it is Dubai that has been his home, and he was vice chairman of the UAE Shipping Association until 2019.

In March, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) MP Jim Shannon asked if the Home Office could assess the potential impact of the UK-UAE Illicit Finance Partnership Agreement on the Lakhani case.

Signed in 2021, the British government heralded the bilateral agreement, saying it would lead to the UK and UAE ramping up the “targeting of those financing terrorism and serious and organised crime gangs as part of a landmark new partnership”.

Responding to Shannon, Security Minister Dan Jarvis repeated the benefits of the agreement and said the Home Office was “not able to comment on or make assessments regarding individual cases”.

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