EXCLUSIVE-Hiscox manager faces Greek perjury charge over extradition case

By Renee Maltezou and Kirstin Ridley

ATHENS/LONDON, March 20 (Reuters) - A manager at London-listed insurer Hiscox HSX.L faces a criminal charge of providing false testimony during an attempted extradition of a former colleague from Greece to Bermuda, court proceedings and filings seen by Reuters show.

An Athens prosecutor alleges the manager, who cannot be named under Greek law, submitted false evidence in 2019 and 2020 that was sent to Greece to support a request from Bermuda for the extradition of Yuval Abraham, a former CFO of Bermuda-based Hiscox unit Hiscox Services Ltd (HSL), court filings show.

The Greek case, which has not been previously reported, follows whistleblower retaliation claims and an eight-year pursuit of Abraham by Hiscox through courts in Bermuda, Britain, the United States, South Africa and Greece over allegations he embezzled about $1.8 million to buy luxury Swiss watches.

A lawyer for the Hiscox manager told an Athens court hearing on March 4 that his client denied wrongdoing and that the case should be struck out because a court summons had been served in Greek rather than English.

"The entirety of what (my client) has testified as part of the extradition process ... corresponds to the truth," the manager's defence lawyer Ioannis Androulakis told the judge.

The manager faces a misdemeanour charge of giving false testimony, punishable by a fine and up to three years in prison.

Bermuda-headquartered Hiscox, one of the largest members of the Lloyd's of London commercial insurance market, declined to comment on the case.

Zoe Konstantopoulou, a lawyer representing Abraham who is also leader of a political party, told Greece's parliament in May 2025 that her client was a "victim of a very serious corruption case".

Konstantopoulou told the court on March 4 that Abraham had been a "very promising, senior executive" who was framed after refusing to turn a blind eye to tax law violations at work.

The next hearing in the case, which was prompted by a lawsuit filed in 2021 by Abraham against the manager, is due on April 21.

ALLEGED SWISS WATCH FRAUD

Abraham alleges, without citing evidence, that he stumbled across a fraud in 2017 that resulted in "astronomical profits" from the non-payment of tax owed to other, unidentified states.

As a result, Abraham refused to sign off on the 2017 annual accounts of a Hiscox subsidiary, that lawsuit shows.

Reuters could not independently verify Abraham's account.

Hiscox declined to comment on the tax fraud allegations.

Three Hiscox subsidiaries, including HSL, alleged Abraham used fake invoices for sham consulting services to siphon cash from Hiscox accounts to buy luxury watches and accessories between June 2017 and February 2018, court filings and public judgments in Bermuda and London show.

Abraham, a 45-year-old citizen of Israel, South Africa and Poland who was fired in 2018, denied wrongdoing in the 2021 counterclaim, alleging that the case against him was designed to silence him after he blew the whistle internally.

Referring the case to trial, the Greek prosecutor said Abraham had not committed fraud, had not supervised the invoices and payments he had been accused of procuring and did not have sole authority to sign such transactions, court documents show.

WORLDWIDE ASSET FREEZES

HSL, Hiscox Agency and Hiscox Insurance Company (Bermuda) secured a civil, summary judgment in Bermuda's Supreme Court against Abraham in October 2018.

This ordered him to pay about $1.5 million and 334,000 Swiss francs ($427,600), plus interest, public judgments show. Courts in Bermuda, New York and London also imposed asset-freezing orders in 2018 and 2019, public judgments show.

In July 2019, police in Bermuda said Abraham had absconded before he could be seized on charges of obtaining money transfers by deception, false accounting, money laundering and other offences.

Abraham was arrested at Athens airport in August 2019 on an Interpol Red Notice, court documents show.

He spent nearly 12 months in a high-security jail, from where he sought asylum in Greece, before the Greek justice ministry declared in 2021 that Bermuda had no power to request his extradition, legal filings show.

($1 = 0.7494 pounds)

($1 = 0.7811 Swiss francs)