Khalid Sharif was a Child & Child partner and the lawyer at the center of a 59.5 million GBP ($89.4 million) property deal in London on behalf of Leyla and Arzu Aliyeva.[663] [664] [570] [461] The deal was under negotiation between 2015 and 2016 but fell apart after it was exposed as part of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ Panama Papers, a leak of information from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.[664] [570] [461]
In 2019, a solicitors’ tribunal ordered Sharif to pay 85,000 GBP ($108,280) in fines and costs for failing to record that Leyla and Arzu Aliyeva, on whose behalf he was acting, were the daughters of the president of Azerbaijan.[664] [570] [461] According to the tribunal’s judgment, Sharif acquired Exaltation Limited, a British Virgin Islands company,[706] for the sisters; payments amounting to 14.3 million GBP ($21.8 million) were made and returned, minus expenses, after the deal collapsed.[461] [504] The tribunal heard that Sharif ought to have flagged Leyla and Arzu Aliyeva as politically exposed persons (PEPs) and conducted in-depth financial checks.[461] However, Sharif “didn’t consider” these steps, and when he was asked if the Aliyeva sisters were PEPs, he told a colleague to tick a box marked “no.”[570]
Sharif also acted for Javad Marandi, UK-based property tycoon and associate of Leyla Aliyeva. Between 2013 and 2014, Sharif helped Marandi “gift” a 3.5 million GBP ($5.6 million) West London flat to Mir Jamal Pashayev,[664] [570] [461] [706] [519] a cousin of Vice President Mehriban Aliyeva.[519] The tribunal found that the transaction had several red flags, such that it presented a “significant risk that money laundering was taking place.”[461] In the aftermath, Sharif left Child & Child, and the firm was dissolved in 2023.[867] [983]
Khalid Sharif did not respond to The Sentry’s request for comment.
