Mozambique: British lawyers to be denied access to hidden debts classified documents – Lusa

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Mozambique: British lawyers to be denied access to hidden debts classified documents – Lusa

9:37 CAT | 20 Jan 2023

File photo: Lusa

The Mozambican Attorney General’s Office will oppose the participation of British lawyers in the selection of confidential official documents to be included in the hidden debts lawsuit in the United Kingdom, despite a British judge considering it legal.

At a preliminary hearing today at the commercial court in London, the lawyer representing Mozambique in the case, Jonathan Adkin, reiterated that the understanding of the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) is that the law does not allow the intervention of outside persons in the manipulation of confidential documents.

“Mozambique’s attorney general [Beatriz Buchili] will consider the judge’s decision carefully and reflect,” Adkin said, but stressed that she is “determined to resist” any order from the British courts to that effect as she believes it goes against Mozambican law.

Adkin was responding to Judge Robin Knowles’ ruling published on Friday, in which he stated that “it is legal under Mozambican law to appoint individual lawyers” to consult confidential documents.

“I respectfully invite the attorney general of Mozambique, as the representative of the Republic before this court, to carefully study this sentence,” he continued, encouraging her to make “further reflection”.

Despite having been in London in recent days to discuss the case with the British legal team representing the attorney general, Buchili was not present in the room, unlike the deputy attorney general, Ângelo Matusse, who attended the hearing.

The participation of British lawyers in the analysis and selection of official documents that will be shared with the other parties was requested by the banks Credit Suisse and VTB and by the shipping group Privinvest as a matter of independence.

In its argument, Credit Suisse claimed that it would be “prejudicial to elementary justice, and would deprive the disclosure exercise of any integrity” if the selection of official documents made available by Mozambique is only made by public officials “whose heads are implicated in irregularities.”

“This is a concern that this court should take seriously into account,” the judge acknowledged.

The disclosure of documentary evidence is an obligatory step in British proceedings, when the different parties make available to each other documents relevant to the case so that each can prepare their respective arguments.

The deadlines for its completion have been subject to successive postponements, which risk affecting the start on 3 October of the trial of a case that has been dragging on in the British courts for almost four years.

The Attorney General’s Office (PGR) began legal action in 2019 on behalf of the Republic of Mozambique in the commercial court, which is part of the High Court in London, against Credit Suisse and the Prinvinvest group to try to cancel part of the more than US$2.7 billion (2.6 billion euros) of debt contracted with international banks between 2013 and 2014.

The loans were guaranteed by the government, led at the time by president Armando Guebuza, without the knowledge of parliament or the administrative tribunal, which led to the denomination of “hidden debts”.

Meanwhile, the Russian bank VTB has also launched a lawsuit in the same court to recover instalments that Mozambique failed to pay for one of the loans made by public companies to buy tuna fishing boats and maritime security equipment and services.

Several senior public officials and state figures, such as Guebuza, former finance minister Manuel Chang and current head of state Filipe Nyusi are named in the suit.

In a court case that was concluded in December in Maputo, 11 of the 19 defendants in this case were sentenced to prison (10 to 12 years). tTree of them will have to pay compensation to the state equivalent to €2.6 billion: Ndambi Guebuza, son of former president Armando Guebuza, and two former heads of the secret services, Gregório Leão and António Carlos do Rosário (former director general and former head of economic intelligence, respectively), who each received a sentence of 12 years in prison.

Source: Lusa