Editing Mohamed Al-Fayed (section)

===Property===
Al-Fayed owned 55 and 60 [[Park Lane]], and a building on South Street, [[Mayfair]]. All three buildings were secretly connected to the [[Dorchester Hotel]], which Al-Fayed purchased for [[Hassanal Bolkiah]], the [[Sultan of Brunei]].<ref name="maureen-orth"/>

In 1995 [[Westminster City Council]] believed that Hyde Park Residences, the company letting 170 luxury flats at 55 and 60 Park Lane, had been wrongly reporting the flats as let on long leases to avoid paying higher business rates due on short tenancies.<ref name="Bower 1998, p.368">Bower 1998, p.368.</ref> The council demanded an additional £1.1 million, and Al-Fayed believed that the letting agent, Sandra Lewis-Glass had betrayed his confidence to the council.<ref name="Bower 1998, p.368"/> After bugging Lewis-Glass's telephone calls and placing her under surveillance, John McNamara, the head of Al-Fayed's security and a former [[Metropolitan Police]] officer, alleged to police that she had stolen two floppy disks worth 80 pence.<ref>Bower 1998, p.369.</ref> Denying the accusation, Lewis-Glass was released without charge, and later sued for wrongful dismissal, winning £13,500.<ref>Bower 1998, p.386.</ref>

In the early 1970s Al-Fayed purchased the Castle St. Therese in the Parc de St Tropez on the [[French Riviera]],<ref name="Bower 1998, p.43">Bower 1998, p.43.</ref> a chalet in [[Gstaad]], Switzerland,<ref name="Bower 1998, p.39"/> and [[Barrow Green Court]] and farm, near [[Oxted]], Surrey.<ref name="Bower 1998, p.43"/>

In ''[[Bocardo SA v Star Energy UK]]'' the [[Supreme Court of the United Kingdom]] denied Al-Fayed compensation after an energy company, Star Energy, had drilled for oil under his Surrey estate. Al-Fayed originally won a share of the oil proceeds at the High Court, but was later told by appeal judges he could only claim damages.<ref name="damages-fight">{{Cite news |date=28 July 2010|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-10791702|title=Al Fayed loses damages in fight over Oxted oil field|work=BBC News}}</ref> Bocardo SA was a company owned by Al-Fayed that owned his estates in Scotland and Surrey; it was based in [[Liechtenstein]].<ref name="NewStatesman99">{{Cite news|last=Rosie|first=George|date=13 December 1999|url=http://www.newstatesman.com/199912130025|title=Who are the lairds lording over us?|work=[[New Statesman]]|access-date=21 September 2024|archive-date=26 November 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111126140332/http://www.newstatesman.com/199912130025|url-status=dead}}</ref>