The Libyan African Investment Company (LAICO), the African subsidiary of the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), won on 28 September an appeal filed with the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) after being featured on the sanctions blacklist established by the EU Council against the Muammar Gaddafi regime since March 2011.

LAICO court's ruling provides for the lifting of the sanctions and asset freezes imposed on it in 2020 and 2021, Africa Intelligence has reported.

The report added that the CJEU ruled that the Council cannot presume, merely because LAICO was closely associated with the former regime of Muammar Gaddafi at the time when the acts that gave rise to the sanctions against that regime were committed, that it remained linked to that regime after its fall and some ten years after the acts that led to the sanctions of 2011.

The EU Council may appeal against the ruling. However, LAICO placed particular emphasis on the fact that its board of directors was completely replaced in 2019 by the Libyan African Investment Portfolio (LAIP), a subsidiary of the LIA, which is itself 100% owned by the current Libyan government.

LAICO invests mainly in hotels and real estate in Africa, from Tunisia to South Africa, including CAR, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ghana, the report added.

Read Also: