The British High Court of Justice rejected businessman Zaza Okuashvili’s claims against former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanshvili.

The judgement was posted on the court’s webpage. The decision reads that “this is a jurisdiction dispute in relation to two claims brought by Zaza Okuashvili and his companies where Okuashvili’s primary target in each is Bidzina Ivanishvili, the former Prime Minister of Georgia, although there are a number of other parties in each claim. All the Defendants have applied, albeit on different grounds, to stop either claim continuing in this jurisdiction.”

In contrast to the claimants, the defendants were Bidzina Ivanishvili, Tbilisi Tobacco and businessman Vano Chkharishvili.

Okuashvili accused Ivanishvili and others of organizing a scam for extortion of  $1.79 million through physical menacing and withdrawal of cash money, allegedly with the participation of armed individuals. In the second claim, Okuashvili asserted that a coordinated attempt to misappropriate his company-owned tobacco Patent had taken place and that Ivanishvili’s collaborators forced him to merge or otherwise, threatened to close his business.

The lawsuit reads that Okuashvili did not ultimately agree to enter into the Merger, while the “government responded by increasing financial pressure upon OGT such that it was unable to continue its tobacco production business, which shut down in August 2018.

The judge criticized Okuashvili’s group of lawyers for not disclosing important information in the statement in the initial stage and called their behaviour “deeply concerning.”

The court ruled that charges of intimidation and conspiracy were, according to Georgian law, “clearly barred by the statute of limitations.”

Mr Justice Rajah considered the claims.