A Cairo court has accepted an appeal by prosecutors against the release of business tycoon Ahmed Ezz and two associates on monopoly charges. Ezz – majority-owner of Ezz El-Dekheila steel company and a senior figure in Hosni Mubarak's National Democratic Party – and company CEO Alaa Abul-Kheir were ordered by the court on Wednesday to pay fines of EGP 100 million ($14.2 million) each, while sales manager Samir Noaman was fined EGP 500,000 ($71,000) The three men were accused of monopolistic practices for penalising steel distributors who did not sell their entire market share during a given month by reducing their shares for the next month. Ezz is to be retried on other corruption charges, including money laundering, illegally procuring steel licenses, and receiving unmerited benefits from Egypt's Industrial Modernisation Centre. Overall, Ezz has been sentenced 60 years, but his appeals were accepted in many of those cases and he is to face retrials. In September, Cairo Criminal Court ordered his release on bail of EGP 100 million after he was retried on charges of laundering EGP 6.4 billion in illegally acquired funds between 2003 and 2011 in deals related to his acquisition of Ezz El-Dekheila (EZDK) steel plant. Ezz is the former chairman of Ezz Steel (ESRS.CA) and has a 55 percent stake in EZDK, the largest steel complex in the Middle East. It was previously known as Alexandria National Iron and Steel Company (ANISC) before Ezz, then a mid-rank steel manufacturer, was called in to bail out the struggling publicly-owned company in 1999. Ezz was secretary-general of Hosni Mubarak's National Democratic Party prior to the 2011 revolution and was a close associate of the former president's son Gamal Mubarak. Source: Ahram Online
