Deyaar's CEO took Dh30m in bribes to approve tower contracts — 15 years in jail

Zack Shahin, an American-Lebanese businessman, ran Deyaar — Dubai's second-largest listed developer — from 2004 to 2007, at the height of the emirate's property boom. The company was awarding dozens of construction contracts for towers across Dubai's new districts, and Shahin sat at the approval point.

A Dubai court later found he used that position to take bribes: Dh20m personally, with accomplices taking another Dh10m, in return for approving contracts. In 2005-2006 a firm called Thermo won three tower contracts — Dh71m for the U1 and U2 towers in Jumeirah Lakes, Dh76m for a Business Bay tower and Dh55m for Metropolis Tower — and audits showed more than Dh30m flowing to the managers' private accounts.

In March 2013 the Dubai Criminal Court sentenced Shahin to 15 years for asking for and accepting bribes, and his co-defendants — including Thermo's managers — to 10 years each. The four were ordered to pay Dh28,556,535 jointly to Deyaar. Shahin denied the charges.

Dh30m in bribes for contract approvals; Dh28.6m fines to Deyaar; CEO jailed 15 years, accomplices 10; Dh202m of tower contracts steered

Shahin alone sat between contractors and their payments, so approvals could be sold without anyone checking the price was market.

The board approved contracts on documents from the CEO, with no independent procurement review or vendor vetting.

Audits found cheques issued to the CEO and suspicious international transfers, but the pattern was only exposed after the boom ended.

Deyaar paid twice: Dh28.6m in ordered restitution plus the damage of a jailed former CEO.

One executive both selecting contractors and approving payments turns vendors into a corruption channel; independent procurement review and payment controls catch what the board missed.

Shahin appealed immediately after the 2013 verdict. He had already spent years in detention — he staged a three-day hunger strike before bail in mid-2012, then fled to Yemen before being returned to the UAE. Deyaar, meanwhile, was hit by the same crash the boom had hidden: it wrote down Dh2.2bn of provisions and impairments, posted a Dh2.3bn loss for 2010, and its then-CEO Markus Giebel left in April 2010.