Azerbaijan, Baku / corr Trend S.Babayeva / The decision of the Rotterdam Court of the Netherlands regarding the financial court proceeding between the Maltese Bank FIMbank (First International Merchant Bank) and the Azerbaijani Ministry of Communications and Information Technology is expected to be made after 20 November. During this period, the court will determine future actions, a source stated at the Ministry on 13 November.
The Ministry considers that the decision may be made regarding the future hearings of the witnesses or making a conclusive decision.
The court hearing took place on 9 October and if the bank did not make a petition for inviting additional witnesses, it would have been possible to hold the concluding hearing on that day.
FIMbank - Kuwati Interests for Financial Investment, is also a shareholder of Poсtbank.
Some 20% of the Azerbaijani-based Poсtbank's shares belonged to "Kuwati Interests for Financial Investment" (KIFI). This company is the key founder of FIMbank. Due to its huge debts, Poсtbank made an appeal to FIMbank for a loan. FIMbank stated that the loan may be presented only after submitting certain documents on behalf of the Azerbaijan Government. Creating artificial documents, Poсtbank submitted them to the opposite side. Despite the information submitted on the documents being false, FIMbank allocated a loan according to the bilateral agreement.
The false documents submitted to FIMbank stated that the loan would be used to purchase telecommunication equipment for the companies Aztell and Baktell (in reality such companies do not exist) which belong to Azerbaijani Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and the Ministry guaranteed the repayment of the loan. Poсtbank could not repay the loan received on the basis of false documents.
As a result of the lawsuit brought by the bank, it was decided to seize the stocks owned by Azerbaijan in satellite network companies - 50,000 stocks in the Holland New Skies Satellites NV, 500,000 in French Eutelsat SA, as well as to seize the dividends received through the stocks and shares in Intelsat Ltd in Bermuda. On 10 November, Paris High Court annulled the decision by the Paris Court on the seizure of 500,000 stocks of the Communications Ministry in Eutelsat S.A.