07/30/2021 12:33
Clarín.com
World
Updated 07/30/2021 12:33 PM
Accused of corruption, Isabel dos Santos will have to return 422 million euros (502 million dollars) to the Sonangol oil company of Angola,
a new setback for the richest woman in
Africa and daughter of the former president of that country, Jose Eduardo dos Santos.
According to the Dutch arbitration institute NAI, which is part of the International Court of Arbitration, the transaction through which Isabel dos Santos acquired an indirect 6% stake in the Portuguese oil and gas group Galp Energia in 2006 through a Dutch company
it is "null and invalid"
.
As a consequence, it must return its shares, worth 422 million euros
to the public company Sonangol
, and therefore to Angola, affirms the arbitration decision dated July 23 and obtained on Friday by the AFP agency.
The headquarters of the oil company Sonangol in Luanda.
The court determined that Isabel dos Santos must return more than 500 million dollars.
Photo: AFP
The transaction, through the Exem Energy holding company, which belonged to Dos Santos' husband, was carried out under "uneconomic conditions" and at
prices "not in accordance with the market"
, says the binding decision, which mentions "kleptocratic transactions" through of which Isabel dos Santos and her husband enriched themselves with State assets.
Isabel dos Santos paid a 15% advance from a Virgin Islands company.
In 2016, when she became CEO of Sonangol, she paid the remainder of the purchase price for her indirect stake in Galp in
kwanza
,
an Angolan currency with no value outside the country
, instead of in euros as decided in the contract , specifies the NAI.
Exem's lawyers challenge "the decision made by the panel of three arbitrators who decided that only the accusations presented by Sonangol were sufficient and did not rule on the evidence and documents presented" by the defense, they explained to AFP from Lisbon.
The former president of Angola, José Eduardo dos Santos, father of Isabel dos Santos.
Photo: EFE
"Politics clearly prevails over legal analysis," they say.
They add that they will appeal
.
Accusations that pile up
Isabel dos Santos, 48, nicknamed the Princess, denies having committed a crime.
The Angolan justice accuses her of corruption and is the
subject of an investigation in Portugal
, a former colonial power.
She is also
involved in the
Luanda Papers
, an investigation by a consortium of 120 journalists based on the leak of 715,000 documents whose findings leave the couple in trouble.
Isabel dos Santos was married to Congolese businessman Sindika Dokolo, who died in October in a diving accident.
Galp's equity stake represents a small part of Dos Santos' large amount of investments in Angola and Portugal.
According to the American magazine Forbes, which in 2013 named her
"the first woman billionaire in Africa"
, these investments are estimated at about 3,000 million dollars (2,500 million euros).
The arrival to power in Angola of Joao Lourenço in 2017 marked the decline of the Dos Santos couple, friends of the trips to the French beaches of St-Tropez and the luxury hotels of London.
In December 2019, the Angolan justice froze their assets and accused the couple of
illicit enrichment and money laundering
.
As evidence, he cited the
embezzlement of more than $ 1 billion
by public oil and diamond groups, in a country where a third of the population lives below the poverty line.
In addition to Sonangol, Isabel dos Santos invested in telephony, diamond mines, banking and the real estate sector, in her country and in Portugal.
Before leaving the presidency in 2017, her father appointed her to the head of Sonangol and
the current head of state fired her in 2018
.
Photo: AFP
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