Ali Mahmoud Hassan Mohamed Wins English Court Battle for Chairman Recognition of English Assets of the LIA
Posted on 05/24/2020
In a long, contentious legal wrangling, on May 15, 2020, the English and Wales Court of Appeal confirmed Ali Mahmoud Hassan Mohamed as the sole validly-appointed Chairman of the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA). Litigation in English Court started to recognize the validly appointed Chairman of the LIA for the purposes of the English assets of the sovereign wealth fund. There were four rival claimants before the English court who claim either that they are currently to be treated as validly appointed or that they may become so following further litigation in the Libyan Courts. The first was Ali Mahmoud Hassan Mohamed who claimed to be the validly appointed Chairman of the LIA deriving his status from Law 13 by virtue of Resolution No 12 for the year 2017 of the Council of Ministers of the Government of National Accord (GNA) made on May 25, 2017. The second was Dr. Hussein Mohamed Hussein Abdlmora relies on an appointment by a resolution on that date by a rival Board of Trustees in Benghazi, such Board of Trustees having been appointed by a rival government affiliated to the HoR. The Appellant in Appeal No A4/2019/1820 Abdulmagid Breish claims a right to chairmanship as a result of his appointment as such by a Board of Trustees deriving its validity from an appointment by the General National Congress (GNC) on June 1, 2013. He too disputes the validity of the appointment of Dr. Mahmoud, and of Dr. Hussein. Dr. Mohsen Derregia now says that he was validly appointed as Chairman on May 9, 2012 by a Board of Trustees constituted by the then government, the National Transitional Council of Libya (NTC). The NTC governed Libya for a period of ten months after the end of the war, holding elections to a General National Congress on July 7, 2012, and handing power to the newly elected assembly on August 8, 2012. The NTC formally transferred power to the General National Congress. On April 1, 2016, the GNC announced its own dissolution and has been replaced by the High Council of State.
Since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, the LIA has been trying to reclaim its assets, while improving its governance to carry on. LIA has also been aggressively pursuing lawsuits of the bad bets LIA made under the Gaddafi regime, which resulted in substantial losses. At the same time, Libya remains mired in military and political conflict. General Khalifa Haftar of the Libyan National Army (LNA) remains in conflict with the GNA, which is based in Tripoli. The GNA has support from Turkey, while the LNA has support from Egypt, Russia, and the United Arab Emirates. The LNA made strong advances over the GNA over the year, but recently, Turkish-backed GNA forces captured a major airbase west of Tripoli, using armed drones to taking out newly-arrived Russian air defence batteries.
The case is Case No: A4/2019/1820 and A4/2019/1833. Neutral Citation Number: [2020] EWCA Civ 637.
Link: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2020/637.html
