An NMC hospital

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan has advised Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB) on its application to have healthcare provider NMC Health put into administration.

ADCB, which has almost $1bn exposure to NMC, has been pushing for administration because it had questioned the way the company was being run.

In a remote hearing, the Insolvency and Companies Court (ICC) in London ruled that "something had gone wrong with the management and oversight" of the company and granted the application for administration issued by ADCB, Quinn said in a statement April 14.

It means that London Stock Exchange-listed NMC, the UAE's largest private sector healthcare group, is facing insolvency after announcing several billion dollars of debts which went unreported in its latest financial statements.

On April 2, ADCB said it had exposure to NMC Health totaling almost $1 billion, but that it was not in a position "to quantity anticipated impairments… due to evolving developments at NMC Health."

A report issued by U.S. short seller, Muddy Waters, late last year claimed NMC Health's financial statements did not reflect the true state of the company's financial position. Additional unreported bank exposure in excess of $4 billion has been revealed in the wake of the investigation.

With 43 medical facilities in the country's main cities, 18 of them in the emirate of Abu Dhabi, the UAE authorities are becoming increasingly concerned that NMC Health's financial troubles could impact the nationwide effort to combat the COVID-19 outbreak.