until 1987. In London in the late 1960s, the Egyptian businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed was introduced to Al Tajir by Salim Abu Alwan, an Iraqi businessman. Al Tajir informed Al-Fayed that Dubai was penniless and needed to borrow £1 million for the future construction of modern harbour facilities. Al-Fayed secured a loan of £9 million from Imre Rochlitz, an American lawyer. Rochlitz's Jewish ancestry caused embarrassment to Al Tajir, and later caused Rochlitz to reject Al-Fayed's offer of a formal partnership. Al-Fayed earned £1.5 million commission from the contract for British engineering company Costain to carry out the improvement works to the port. Al-Fayed also assisted with securing the financing for the Dubai World Trade Centre. By the mid 1970s Costain had gained over £280 million of contracts thanks to Al-Fayed and Al Tajir. Al Tajir's influence in Dubai was waning by 1977, and Al-Fayed was excluded from the commission process for a new aluminium smelter, and the development of Jebel Ali, putting Costain's future profits at risk. In 1993 Al-Fayed was visited at his department store Harrods by Mohammed Alabbar, the director of Dubai's Department of Economic Development. Alabbar had been appointed by Sheikh Maktoum to eradicate the system of large commission payments from previous decades. Al Tajir was challenged in the British courts to repay his alleged excessive profits earned from the construction of Dubai's aluminium smelter, and Al-Fayed was targeted over his management contract of the Dubai World Trade Centre. The construction of Dubai's aluminium smelter caused Al Tajir to fall out with Sheikh Rashid's sons. In the judgement of a British court case, Al Tajir conspired to defraud Dubai Aluminium of millions of US dollars in connivance with commodities trader Marc Rich, who owned a neighbouring property in Switzerland. Al Tajir owns a glass-bottling company in Dubai and a private bank in the tax haven of the Cayman Islands. References External links The Al Tajir trust 1931 births Living people Emirati businesspeople Emirati billionaires Emirati emigrants to the United Kingdom Scottish billionaires Emirati philanthropists Emirati people of Bahraini descent Ambassadors of the United Arab Emirates to the United Kingdom Ambassadors of the United Arab Emirates to France Emirati art collectors People educated at Preston Grammar School Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom