Gulf Keystone CEO Gained in ‘Unusual’ Share Deal, Lawsuit Says
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Todd Kozel, the founder and chief executive officer of Gulf Keystone Petroleum Ltd., was accused in a U.K. lawsuit of making a 17.2 million-pound ($27 million) profit by using an offshore trust to buy stock just before the London-listed company announced it had struck oil in Iraq.
Excalibur Ventures LLC, which is seeking a 30 percent stake in Gulf Keystone’s Kurdistan oil fields in its lawsuit, said Kozel’s holdings in the Alternative Investment Market-listed company were “opaquely structured and incompletely disclosed,” according to documents filed at the court and seen by Bloomberg News. Gulf Keystone says it has fully complied with the exchange’s rules.