A court has cleared the way for Mozambique to pursue the widow of a Lebanese tycoon for compensation for his role in a $2 billion corruption scandal.
The African nation sued Iskandar Safa and his shipbuilding company Privinvest in 2023 at the High Court in London over what has come to be known as the “tuna bonds” scandal.
Mozambique alleged Privinvest and Mr Safa paid more than $136 million in bribes to officials and bankers to secure favourable terms for contracts, including one designed to exploit the nation’s tuna-rich coastal waters. Mozambique agreed to guarantee the loans under contracts which were governed by English law, so the dispute has been heard at the High Court in London.
Privinvest sold fishing boats, patrol vessels, and equipment to the state at vastly inflated prices after paying bribes. But Mozambique was saddled with a $2 billion debt, which brought the country's economy to its knees when the scandal came to light.
Mr Safa gave evidence in the High Court proceedings when he was seriously ill with cancer. He died in January 2024, aged 68. In December 2024, a judge ordered Privinvest to pay $534 million plus interest of $40 million to Mozambique.
Another judge allowed Mozambique to add Mr Safa’s widow, Clara Martinez Thedy de Safa, to the claim. This was on the basis that Mr Safa had not left a legally valid will. Under Lebanese law, the next of kin automatically assumes both the assets and debts of the deceased.
Ms Safa appealed against that decision and her barrister, Robert Howe KC, told a hearing in July this year that she had no knowledge or involvement in any of her husband’s wrongdoing. Mr Howe argued that in law an English court should not accept jurisdiction over claims against a person acting as the administrator of an overseas estate.
Such claims are exclusively for the courts of that country, he said. Her legal team also relied on a rule that prevents a person administering a deceased person's estate under foreign law from being sued in England and Wales.
But in his ruling, Lord Justice Miles said that under Lebanese law, “there is no concept of an estate”, similar to the UK, and “the inheritance by an heir of the assets is automatic and immediate on death. The deceased’s creditors are exposed to the risk that the deceased’s assets may be mixed up with the heir’s own assets,” he said.
As such, the claim against Mrs Safa was against her personally and could be heard in an English court, so her appeal was dismissed, said the judge. The actual sum that Mrs Safa inherited, or for which she is liable, has yet to be established and will be determined at future hearings.
Last year, Mozambique’s former finance minister Manuel Chang was sentenced to nearly two years in jail in the US and ordered to pay back $7 million for his role in the “tuna bonds” scandal. The country was left with a fleet of 24 rusting fishing vessels, which were eventually auctioned off.
According to his obituary in The Times, Mr Safa was born into a prosperous Maronite Christian family in 1955. He obtained an engineering degree from the American University of Beirut in 1978. Mr Safa fought with a Christian militia in the country’s civil war. He studied in France and also worked as an engineer in Saudi Arabia.
With his brother Akram, he founded Privinvest, which specialises in warships, commercial vessels and mega yachts. His contacts in the Middle East led him to become involved in negotiating the release of French hostages held by Hezbollah.