Why Hindujas, UK's richest family, have been found guilty of exploiting domestic workers

The billionaire Hinduja family – UK’s richest family – was on June 21 (Friday) found guilty of exploiting domestic workers at a luxury villa in Geneva, Swtizerland, but acquitted of the more serious charge of human trafficking.Prosecutors had charged four members of the family — Prakash Hinduja; his wife Kamal Hinduja; their son Ajay Hinduja; and their daughter-in-law Namrata Hinduja — with trafficking and exploiting several workers from India.They were accused of confiscating the employees’ passports and forcing them to work 15-18 hours a day without overtime pay in the villa. Lawyers representing the Hindujas had denied the allegations.The court on Friday sentenced Prakash and Kamal Hinduja to four years and six months in prison, and Ajay and Namrata Hinduja to four years, according to news agencies. It also ordered them to pay about $950,000 in compensation, as well as about $300,000 in procedural fees. Najib Ziazi, a business adviser for the family who also faced charges, was found complicit in the exploitation.In a statement emailed by Romain Jordan, a lawyer representing the Hindujas, members of the family said they were “disappointed” by the decision and had filed an appeal to a higher court. “The family has full faith in the judicial process and remain determined to defend themselves,” the statement added.'Family spent more on pet than on staff'Earlier in June, domestic staff for the billionaire Hinduja family settled a civil case over alleged worker exploitation in Switzerland, which saw three plaintiffs dropping the civil suit against the family. However the criminal case against them continued. A panel of three judges rendered the verdict, not a jury as is the norm in US or UK criminal trials.The family is worth an estimated £37bn ($47bn), according to reports. The Hinduja Group has interests in shipping, banking, media and other industries, besides real estate in London.The criminal case focused on allegations of human trafficking. The four members of the Hinduja family were accused of making their staff work up to 18 hour days, seven days a week, that their passports were confiscated and that they worked on the basis of short-term tourist visas obtained on false pretenses, over and over again.Some workers allegedly spoke only Hindi and were paid their wages in rupees in banks back in India that they could not access. medium111107398Well-known Geneva prosecutor Yves Bertossa had launched a blistering attack on the family at the Swiss city’s criminal court citing testimony from the staff and Hindujas, as well as evidence submitted during his investigation.“They spent more for one dog than one of their servants,” he said. The woman, he said, was paid at one point as little as 7 Swiss francs ($7.84) for a working day that lasted as long as 18 hours, seven days a week. He pointed to a budget document headlined “Pets”, which he said demonstrated that the family spent 8,584 Swiss francs in a year on their family dog.Staff contracts didn’t specify working hours or days off, but rather that they be available as needed by their employers, Bertossa continued. Given their passports had been confiscated, they had no Swiss francs to spend as their wages were paid in India and couldn’t leave the house without their employer’s permission, they had little to no freedom, he argued.Even when they left the Hindujas’ home for the family’s residences in the Swiss Alps or Cote d’Azur, it wasn’t for fun, he said. When they accompanied family members to Cannes, he asked, “what were they doing there, jet skiing?”Hinduja family refutes claimsBut lawyers for the family hit back at Bertossa’s claims, repeatedly citing the servants’ testimony that they were treated with respect and dignity. Bertossa, according to the defence, was being misleading in his characterisations of their remuneration.“The salary can’t simply be reduced to what they were paid in cash,” given their board and lodgings were covered, said Yael Hayat, a lawyer for the scion of the Swiss-based branch of the family, Ajay Hinduja. Eighteen hour-working days is also an exaggeration, she said.“When they sit down to watch a movie with the kids, can that be considered work? I think not,” she said.Hayat argued that one of the workers considered the pay she got in Geneva to be good compared with what she earned in India. She said the woman came to Geneva of her own will, and kept coming back over and over again.The idea of “breaking the rich to make the poor less poor” is attractive but the Geneva prosecutor’s office is conflating justice with social justice, she continued. “The decision rendered in this case must be a judicial one.”During the trial, Ajay Hinduja testified that he lacked a detailed knowledge of the staff’s working conditions as their recruitment was handled by the Hinduja Group in India. Nevertheless he said that staff are no longer paid informally and now all hiring is done locally through a third-party.“You won’t find a single employee who says they were hired by Ajay,” Hayat told the court. “The reality is he knows nothing as he was elsewhere.”The senior family members Prakash and Kamal didn’t come to Geneva for the trial citing poor health.Bertossa said they had shown their contempt for the courts, and called for them to get five and half years in prison. The elderly couple travelled freely between Dubai and Cannes and could have spent the extra 30 minutes on a plane to come to Geneva, he said.The younger Ajay and his wife Namrata should each receive sentences of four and a half years, Bertossa said. He also demanded the family cover 1 million Swiss francs in court costs and pay 3.5 million francs into a compensation fund for the staff. medium111107670Ajay Hinduja, meanwhile, rejected allegations he made an Indian nanny at his Swiss villa work punitive hours, saying it would’ve been idiotic to do so when she was like a “second mum” to his kids.Ajay Hinduja, his wife Namrata and parents Prakash and Kamal were all indicted last year by Geneva prosecutors for allegedly making their staff work up to 18-hour days without a day off at their villa overlooking Lake Geneva.“Someone who would make an employee work that hard would be an idiot,” Ajay Hinduja told the court . “She wouldn’t have been able to do her job properly if she worked 18 hours a day, 7 days a week.”“I am shocked that someone who we considered to be a second mum for our children, could accuse us of something as demeaning as human trafficking,” he said later in the hearing, testifying mainly in French.He said he wanted to thank the woman for her work for the family, adding that she’s still in touch with his kids and sends them Diwali greetings by phone.Ajay Hinduja also testified that the staff’s Swiss paperwork was all in order, which goes to the heart of the indictment accusing the family of illegally trafficking their staff in and out of Switzerland. He claimed employees had contracts endorsed by the Swiss embassy in India and their visas were regularly renewed by Geneva cantonal authoriies. The judge challenged him on his testimony, saying checks demonstrated the staff only ever had French-issued, Schengen-zone visas, which allow people to move without passport checks within the European travel area.Geneva prosecutors say that despite the long hours, the Hindujas never paid their staff more than a few hundred Swiss francs a month — a fraction of local wages. The 56-year-old, who sits on the board of the Hinduja Group, one of India’s largest conglomerates, testified that it was the Hinduja Group’s HR department that did all hiring and contracts, not him, and so he couldn’t comment on that allegation.