Sanjay Shah Appeals 12-Year Sentence in Danish Tax Case

Sanjay Shah, founder of the former hedge fund Solo Capital, has appealed his 12-year prison sentence in Denmark over a dividend tax fraud scheme that cost the treasury more than DKK9 billion ($1.35 billion).

The 56-year-old British trader appeared before Copenhagen’s High Court on Tuesday, seeking to overturn his 2024 conviction for serious fraud. The appeal is scheduled to include 23 hearings, with a verdict expected in spring 2027.

Prosecutors accused Shah of organizing thousands of false applications for dividend tax refunds between 2012 and 2015. The claims formed part of the Cum-Ex scandal, in which banks, traders and financial institutions across Europe were accused of obtaining refunds for taxes that had not been paid.

Shah denies wrongdoing and maintains that his trading activities used legal loopholes rather than fraud. His defense is expected to cite a 2025 London civil court ruling in which Denmark’s tax authority failed to prove that Shah and other defendants had acted deceitfully. The court also criticized weaknesses in the authority’s tax-refund controls.

The Danish court that convicted Shah found that he was central to creating and running the scheme. It found that he used software to increase the number of refund applications and that more than 80% of the proceeds went to him.

Shah has remained in Danish custody since his extradition from Dubai in 2023. The case is part of a broader investigation into dividend tax-refund schemes that Denmark estimates cost the state DKK12.7 billion.

Two other traders have been convicted in connection with the Danish scandal. Anthony Mark Patterson, a former Solo Capital associate, received an eight-year sentence in 2024.