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Gold Coast property developer Sunland has launched a court bid to strike out a $9 million damages action by Marcus Lee, the Australian accountant who blames the company for his imprisonment and almost five years trapped in Dubai. 
Mr Lee is suing the company and its executives and directors Soheil Abedian, Ron Eames and David Brown, alleging they conspired to injure him by supporting the Dubai prosecution against him over a $13.7 million Sunland property purchase that turned sour.
In late 2013, the emirate's courts finally cleared Mr Lee and his boss on the Dubai Waterfront development, fellow Australian Matt Joyce, of defrauding Sunland and the state-controlled owner of the land, Nakheel. But they had spent nine months in jail and another four years under effective house arrest in Dubai while they fought to clear their names.
Sunland had alleged it was tricked into paying the $13.7 million "consultancy fee" to another Australian company, Prudentia, so it would forfeit its right to develop a plot known as D17. That "walk-away" money cleared the path for Sunland to buy the plot from Nakheel, but prosecutors said Prudentia had established no claim over the plot and so had nothing to sell.
Dubai's property bubble burst, meanwhile, and Sunland's ambitious plans for D17 never went ahead.
Mr Lee, as Waterfront's director of commercial operations, prepared the business case for Sunland's purchase. But he claims Sunland and its executives knew he played no role in the alleged plot to defraud it, and that they nevertheless supported a "malicious" prosecution against him. He accuses them of injurious falsehoods and negligence.
Mr Lee's claim in the Queensland Supreme Court for about $9 million includes his loss of income, distress, legal costs in Dubai and losses incurred by his forced sale of properties in Australia.
However, in court in Brisbane on Wednesday, Sunland applied to have his entire case struck out.