The Attorney General of Mozambique, Beatriz Buchili, said on Wednesday, 19 April, in Parliament, during the presentation of the annual report on legality and criminality, that the case of the hidden debts, which defrauded the Mozambican State of over US$2.2 billion, will go on trial in October this year in the London court.
The Mozambican state has asked the British courts to annul all guarantees issued by the government that made the loan to Proíndicus and Mozambique Asset Management (MAM) possible, or Credit Suisse – which gave Proíndicus a loan of US$622 million to develop the project to protect the maritime and exclusive economic zone – and the Russian bank VTB – which issued a credit of US$535 million to MAM for ship construction.
The debts incurred by Proíndicus and MAM were issued with the Mozambican state as guarantor for the two financial institutions. In the discussion and trial session of the Mozambique hidden debts case, it was proved that neither the Ministry of Finance nor the Bank of Mozambique had the competence to issue sovereign guarantees, as this was a private business.
The Constitutional Council, in its ruling of 8 May 2020, declared the guarantees issued by the Mozambican state to the loans made between 2013 and 2014 null and void, a ground that led the Public Ministry to file a lawsuit in the London court against Proíndicus and MAM.
“We are continuing the process of preparing for the trial scheduled for October 2023 in the London court, continuing with interlocutory proceedings,” the attorney general said.
This is not the first legal battle that the Mozambican public prosecutor’s office is fighting in London demanding the accountability of the Proíndicus and MAM companies, two of the three companies involved in the hidden debts.
“The Privinvest group has filed four arbitration proceedings against the Mozambican state, based on the alleged breach of contracts for the supply of equipment and services by the companies Proíndicus, Empresa Moçambicana de Atum (EMATUM) and MAM,” the attorney general said, adding that three of these actions were dismissed and, consequently, the case was extinguished. “In the fourth action, Previnvest gave up, and it was homologated by the court, which determined the closure of the litigation opposing Previnvest to the Mozambican State.”
At the request of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Proíndicus and MAM were, in the meantime, dissolved by the commercial session of the judicial court of the city of Maputo.
Regarding case 18/2019C, of the trial that took place in 2021 and 2022 in the country, Buchili recalled that the Supreme Court’s verdict on the appeal filed by the Public Prosecutor’s Office to try to aggravate the penal framework of less than 12 years applied to the main defendants of the case is pending.
The 11 defendants that were convicted have also appealed against the ruling made by the Maputo City Judicial Court, regarding the possible demand of over US$2 billion, rather than US$900,000, ordered to be paid to the Mozambican state and the process of preventive seizure of assets.
The Commercial Court, which is part of the High Court in London, is scheduled to begin the main trial on 3 October on the validity of the debts.
