Published 30th Sep 2023, 04:55 BST

There will be many repercussions arising from the ruling by a New York Supreme Court judge that Donald Trump defrauded banks and insurers as he amassed his property empire, and some of them could be felt on this side of the Atlantic.

The civil fraud cause ruling by judge Arthur Engoron has already determined the former US president and his company oversaw a false valuation of his Aberdeenshire resort, having derived a figure based on an assumption that more than 2,000 homes could be developed, when it only has permission to build 500 residential dwellings.

But the shockwaves could go further. A key takeaway from the ruling is that unless it is successfully appealed, it will lead to the revocation of the Trump Organisation’s business certificates in New York. That would essentially prevent the company from conducting business in the state. George Conway, a US lawyer and prominent critic of Mr Trump, characterised the ruling as “the equivalent of the corporate death penalty for the Trump Organisation” in the city where its patriarch made his name.

Mr Trump, who has strenuously denied any wrongdoing and intends to appeal the ruling, could lose control of some of his top-tier property holdings, such as Trump Tower in Manhattan, a large commercial building on Wall Street, and a golf course in Westchester County, north of New York city. But thanks to the Trump Organisation’s corporate structures, there are also questions around what it means for his assets in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry.

At first glance, it appears it will be business as usual. The civil summary judgement ruling of a court in New York has no enforceable legal basis in Scotland that would prevent the Trump Organisation’s subsidiaries from operating. However, the full answer is more complex.

Significantly, the Engoron ruling explicitly states the limited liability companies (LLCs) that have been “cancelled” should be dissolved altogether. They include an entity called DJT Holdings, which is the immediate parent company of Trump International Golf Club Scotland Ltd, the firm that runs Mr Trump’s resort in Aberdeenshire.

Does that mean the Balmedie property will be caught up in the dissolution? It’s unclear, and the situation is even less certain surrounding Turnberry, where Golf Recreation Scotland Ltd, the company overseeing the former Open Championship venue, is ultimately controlled by a Florida state grantor trust. That too is listed as a defendant in the New York fraud case.

An obvious caveat in all this is Mr Trump’s byzantine network of corporate interests is not concentrated in New York – many others are registered in the likes of Delaware and Florida. He could, in theory, simply rejig or reincorporate the array of holding companies and LLCs so as to mitigate the impact of the judge’s ruling.

It is too early to say whether such a course of action is possible, but one thing is clear – if the lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letita James goes to trial next week as planned, and the court finds in her favour, it is unlikely there will be any branch of the Trump Organisation that will be immune from the impact. Ms James is seeking to impose penalties totalling more than £200 million on the defendants, a figure she says amounts to the estimated worth of benefits derived from the alleged fraud.

The imposition of such a penalty would impact the Trump Organisation’s business plans. In Scotland, where there are more questions than answers about Mr Trump’s future intentions, that could be significant.

On the one hand, Mr Trump’s properties here are protected in the sense they are not reliant on mortgages. They are owned outright, meaning that any difficulties around refinancing from banks or other lenders would not necessarily come into play. Equally, however, the Trump Organisation has pledged for major capital investments here. Will they still be pursued? Or are there tell-tale signs the company’s commitments to Scotland are less robust than they once were?

As chance would have it, today marks exactly four years since Mr Trump’s companies talked up its plans for a large-scale expansion of the Aberdeenshire resort. The Trump Organisation vowed to spend £150m to build 500 homes and 50 hotel cottages at the so-called Trump Estate development, with a press release issued on September 30, 2019 noting interest from as far afield as Washington and Singapore. However, the timescale for the project is unclear, and one overlooked piece of evidence in Ms James’s lawsuit offers some doubt as to its future.

In a deposition this April, where he was questioned about his future intentions, Mr Trump said he was “not anxious to build housing in Scotland right now”, explaining: “I have no desire to build in Scotland right now. You know, holding something is OK too for ten years or five years or 20 years or let my family do it a long time from now.”

In the same deposition, the 77-year-old also said he could sell Turnberry to the Saudis or other interested parties “for a fortune”. He said: “I believe I could sell that to a lot of people for numbers that would be astronomical because it is very much like owning a great painting … I would be able to sell Turnberry quickly for a tremendous amount of money.”

In light of the above, The Scotsman asked the Trump Organisation if it was actively considering offloading Turnberry, and whether it had a timescale for the Aberdeenshire housing. It did not address either question directly, but Chris Kise, an attorney acting for Mr Trump, said the full impact of the New York court ruling “remains unclear”, and described it as an attempt to “nationalise one of the most successful corporate empires in the United States”.

Mr Trump, unsurprisingly, will keep fighting. But what exactly is left of his empire when the dust settles will be interesting to see.

Analysis: Trump fraud ruling casts shadow over former US president's property empire and Scotland assets