Cuba wins ruling in UK court battle with creditors over unpaid loans

[El Presidente]

 

Reuters

LONDON, April 4 (Reuters) - The Cuban government won a ruling on Tuesday that London's High Court has no jurisdiction to hear a lawsuit brought by a creditor over unpaid loans, though the case can continue against Cuba's former central bank.

Investment firm CRF I Ltd filed a lawsuit against Cuba and its former central bank Banco Nacional de Cuba (BNC) in 2020, over two loans of 72 million euros ($78 million) that were originally granted to Cuba by European banks in the 1980s.

 

CONTINUED

[MrBirdman]

The case is still moving forward against the central bank. One wonders how they plan to enforce any judgement, other than by seizing Cuban assets in the U.K. I don’t know British law. If Cuban assets/earnings can be garnished in the U.K. for a judgement against their central bank, there goes the British CC industry. I don’t see why HSA would send cigars somewhere just to slowly contribute to satisfying a judgement that would take eons to pay off with cigar and rum (maybe mineral?) exports.

[helix]

"Cuba's state-run media hailed the ruling as a victory for the communist-run country. CubaDebate, a state-run media outlet, reported that "the Republic of Cuba is out of the lawsuit".

The report noted that the judicial process would continue forward against BNC."

BNC or Republic of, what's the difference ? Just another loan default by Cuban Government.   

[ATGroom]

8 hours ago, MrBirdman said:

The case is still moving forward against the central bank.

The case is moving forward against the former central bank.

From a few minutes on Google it looks as though Cuba changed their central bank from the Banco Nacional de Cuba to the Banco Central de Cuba in 1997. I gather that BNC as an entity owns all Cuba's pre-1997 debt, and their function is to renegotiate the debt, at which point it would be transferred to the BCC.

So it may be accurate to say that this is a victory for Cuba, in that the entity left in the lawsuit has no assets to seize or credit rating to ruin and the outcome is moot.

 

NB: This comes from skimming one Wikipedia page and the machine-translated Cuban central bank page. Someone with actual knowledge of Cuban banking may disagree with my interpretation.

[MrBirdman]

24 minutes ago, ATGroom said:

The case is moving forward against the former central bank.

From a few minutes on Google it looks as though Cuba changed their central bank from the Banco Nacional de Cuba to the Banco Central de Cuba in 1997. I gather that BNC as an entity owns all Cuba's pre-1997 debt, and their function is to renegotiate the debt, at which point it would be transferred to the BCC.

So it may be accurate to say that this is a victory for Cuba, in that the entity left in the lawsuit has no assets to seize or credit rating to ruin and the outcome is moot.

 

NB: This comes from skimming one Wikipedia page and the machine-translated Cuban central bank page. Someone with actual knowledge of Cuban banking may disagree with my interpretation.

OK, but then I can’t understand why they would spend so much effort going after a judgment-proof defendant?