Azerbaijan, Baku / Trend corr S. Babayeva / The Maltese FimBank (First International Merchant Bank Limited) has raised a petition with the Rotterdam Court to invite additional witnesses to the trial. The Maltese FimBank brought a charge against the Azerbaijani Government demanding they pay off the loan to the amount of over $4.5mln, which, according to the bank, was allotted to Azerbaijani telecommunication companies under the State guarantee.
The head of the Rights and Human Resources Department at the Azerbaijani Communications and Information Technology Ministry, Bakhtiyar Mammadov, said the court had complied to the petition. The next court hearing is scheduled for 9 October and all details of the decision will be announced then.
Witnesses from both sides testified during the recent hearing held in Rotterdam in December 2006 and in June 2007. Mammadov regarded the petition by the banks as an attempt to adjourn the trial.
The first lawsuit was initiated by FimBank in July 2004 at the courts of Rotterdam and Paris