Two French Court of Appeal judgements lift Tunisian company’s seizures of LFB assets

The Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Libyan Foreign Bank (LFB), Mohamed Al-Darrat, said that the bank’s management managed, in early September, to obtain two judgments issued in favour of the LFB by the French Court of Appeal.

Al-Darrat explained on his Twitter account that the two rulings require the lifting of the seizures previously signed by Tunisian company Siba Plast, on the bank’s assets in France, with a value of 280 million euros.

Al-Darrat considered that the two judicial rulings come within the framework of a plan to reform the LFB’s conditions through strategic transformation projects launched during the past year, including protecting the bank’s assets.

Crucial to the case was the French Court of Appeal recognizing the independence of the financial and legal personality of the Libyan Foreign Bank from the responsibility and personality of the Libyan state.

The case reflects an ongoing trend by foreign entities seeking to recover debts in or to the Libya state/Libyan entities from assets frozen or deposited abroad. The foreign entities argue that all Libyan monies abroad belong to the state. The Libyan side argues that many Libyan entities are independent from the state. The debate in foreign courts is on how independent are these entities from political control.