Bangladeshi business magnate Mohammed Saiful Alam, widely known as S Alam, has dragged Muhammad Yunus’s interim government into an international arbitration battle at the World Bank, accusing the regime of waging a vindictive smear-and-seizure campaign that has cost his family hundreds of millions of dollars.
The move, filed on Monday at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Washington, lays bare a broader pattern of political revenge that has ensnared thousands of Awami League leaders, workers, supporters, and even ordinary beneficiaries of the ousted Sheikh Hasina era.
Lawyers for S Alam, founder of the sprawling S Alam Group conglomerate, allege that Yunus’s administration has orchestrated arbitrary asset freezes, baseless confiscations, and a state-coordinated media lynching designed to destroy reputations and livelihoods.
The claim invokes a 2004 Bangladesh-Singapore investment treaty, with the family—now Singaporean citizens—seeking protection under Bangladesh’s 1980 foreign investment law. The arbitration marks a humiliating global rebuke to Yunus’s narrative of “recovering stolen billions,” exposing it as a pretext for settling old scores.
The case centres on the regime’s December economic white paper, a document ridiculed by economists and journalists as fantastical for claiming $234 billion was looted under Hasina’s 15-year rule. Central bank governor Ahsan H Mansur, Yunus’s point man on asset recovery, has accused the S Alam family of diverting $12 billion from the banking system—a charge the conglomerate dismisses as baseless.
Lawyers from Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan detailed how the government froze family bank accounts, seized properties without evidence, and fueled an “incendiary media campaign” via regime-aligned outlets that branded the Alams as economic criminals.
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This is no isolated vendetta. Since the August 2024 uprising that toppled Hasina, Yunus’s government has unleashed a systematic purge against anyone tied to the Awami League. Fabricated corruption and murder cases—built on coerced testimonies from the protest chaos—have jailed former ministers, generals, and mid-level organisers.
Grassroots party workers face midnight arrests, while ordinary supporters endure extortion, job losses, and social ostracism. Beneficiaries of Hasina-era initiatives, from digital stipends to export incentives, now face retroactive audits and punitive taxes.
The media assault is relentless. State-friendly television channels and newspapers run daily hit pieces, recycling unproven allegations to justify the crackdown. S Alam, whose empire in food, construction, garments, and banking employed tens of thousands and thrived under Hasina’s industrialisation push, has been painted as public enemy number one.
The regime’s silence in response to the Financial Times—neither Yunus’s office nor Mansur offered substantive comment—speaks volumes.
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The arbitration claim follows ignored warnings issued in December, when S Alam’s lawyers gave the government six months to resolve the dispute. Instead, the freeze-and-smear tactics escalated. The family argues that no evidence has ever been produced to substantiate the looting claims, yet the damage is done: investor confidence is evaporating, and Bangladesh’s reputation as a stable emerging market lies in tatters.
Analysts see the purge as a desperate bid to legitimise Yunus’s unelected rule ahead of long-delayed elections. By demonising the Awami era, the regime distracts from its own failures—soaring inflation, garment sector collapse, and capital flight. The revival of China’s $1 billion Teesta River project is touted as progress, but it cannot mask the rot within: a government drunk on retribution, weaponising institutions to crush opposition.
As the World Bank tribunal looms, the stakes extend far beyond one tycoon. Foreign investors are reassessing risks, diplomatic allies are distancing themselves, and the promise of “free and fair” polls rings hollow with the Awami League systematically dismantled. Yunus’s revolution, sold as justice, stands exposed as a settling of scores—one that Bangladesh’s fragile democracy and economy may not survive.
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