VINCENT TCHENGUIZ RELEASED ON POLICE BAIL AS PEVEREL CALM WORRIED LEASEHOLDERS

The dramatic arrest attracted worldwide publicity, and although comment on forums and in the blogoshpere has been mixed, commentators in national newspapers are exercising more caution in their reporting. Cahal Milmo writing in The Independent said: "It would be foolhardy to write them off just yet. Both men issued a strongly worded denial of any wrongdoing while teams of police officers were still combing their offices close to the Dorchester Hotel in Mayfair."   And Stephen Foley, writing in the same paper, observed: "It is worth noting that, on the same day, it was revealed that the SFO will not be laying any charges against the Sports Direct owner, Mike Ashley, after an investigation, unrelated to the credit crisis, which took well over a year....Charges, if they come, are months away. And as prosecutors in the US found, when a jury acquitted two Bear Stearns hedge fund managers, making investment mistakes is not the same as fraud. Conflicts of interest do not amount to fraud." 

Meanwhile, Ian King wryly observed in The Times under the heading "Brothers may be a sacrificial offering", "...there are also other theories, one of which is that the British Government is desperate to build bridges with Reykjavik, which is still furious at the way Gordon Brown used anti-terrorism laws to confiscate the assets of Iceland's banks.  With a large energy deal with Iceland purportedly in the offing, the theory goes, the brothers would make a sacrificial offering.  The unusually heavy-handed treatment of the pair by the Serious Fraud Office would appear to substantiate that theory."