Mozambique | ‘Hidden debts’: UK court maintains October trial date

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Mozambique | ‘Hidden debts’: UK court maintains October trial date

4:44 CAT | 03 Jul 2023

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The Commercial Court of London this Monday refused to annul the pending Mozambique ‘hidden debts’ case pending, keeping the start of the trial for October.

In a decision published today, Judge Robin Knowles ruled that “it is not fair, proportionate or necessary to overrule the Republic’s claims or requests, or prevent it from defending itself, at this stage”.

The judge thus decided to reject a request by Credit Suisse bank to annul the London trial on Mozambique’s hidden debts due to the Mozambican government’s failure to disclose documentary evidence.

However, he noted that “at trial, all alternatives, including that of totally or partially annulling [the case], remain available.”

“Criticisms of the Republic’s release [of documents], whether individual criticisms or the question of the global effect on confidence in their release, could be highly material on trial. A calibrated response will be possible in a way that is not possible now,” Judge Knowles stressed.

READ: Hidden debts: Credit Suisse asks London court to dismiss lawsuit brought by Mozambique

Knowles does not now consider there to be a “substantial risk of an unfair trial”, but admits that “he will have to guard with special vigilance against unfairness in the trial”.

The magistrate admitted that the absence of official Mozambican documents could be detrimental to the arguments of the Mozambican PGR.

Knowles warned that during the trial “it may have to conclude that failures in the Republic’s disclosure or in the Republic’s compliance with its disclosure duties have substantive adverse consequences for the Republic’s case”.

Credit Suisse lawyers complained about the delay and lack of transparency of the process and the inability to obtain official documents, in particular from the Office of the President of the Republic and the State Intelligence and Security Service (SISE).

The court says British lawyers representing the Attorney General of the Republic of Mozambique, together with the Deputy Attorney General, Vasco Matusse, met the Mozambican head of state, Filipe Nyusi, and obtained authorization for additional searches.

After searches in the Office of the President, Offices of the President’s Advisors, General Secretariat and Office of the Chief of Staff, 20 additional documents were identified.

Searches in the SISE were characterised by state secrecy, having only been carried out internally.

The resulting declaration was that “there were no documents or [that] the documents were elsewhere”, with SISE admitting that “it was and continues to be rare for people working at the institution to use institutional email accounts”, the British court reports today.

The London Commercial Court has scheduled for October 3 the start of the trial of the lawsuit filed by the PGR of Mozambique in 2019 to try to cancel a debt of US$622 million owed by state-owned company ProIndicus to the Credit Suisse bank, alleging that it resulted from corruption.

The loan was endorsed by the government of Mozambique without the requisite knowledge of parliament and the Administrative Tribunal, and was intended to finance the purchase of tuna fishing boats and maritime safety equipment and services provided by companies in the Privinvest naval group.

The case, discovered in 2016 and which has since become known as the “hidden debts” scandal, involves contracts and loans of around US$2.2 billion (about €2 billion) from Credit Suisse and VTB banks between 2013 and 2014 to Mozambican state-owned companies Proindicus, Ematum and MAM.

Source: Lusa