An infrastructure construction company turns to Omni Bridgeway
The situation
Our client, an infrastructure construction company, concluded an agreement with an African state (via its Ministry for Works) to rehabilitate a roadway between two major cities. The project was funded by the European Union through the European Development Fund (EDF). Our client and the African State entered into a dispute for breach of contract and resolved their dispute through arbitration under the Procedural Rules on Conciliation and Arbitration of Contracts Financed by the European Development Fund (EDF Rules). In 2020 the Arbitral tribunal awarded our client an amount in excess of USD 34 million). When the State refused to honor the arbitral Award and demonstrated no intention to comply, our client’s Chief Financial Officer engaged Omni Bridgeway’s leading enforcement team to devise and execute a recovery strategy.
Our role
Our experienced team of enforcement specialists:
- Undertook asset and enforcement actions in Belgium, France, Uganda, The Netherlands, the US, the UK and Canada
- Anticipated, prepared for and contested the debtor’s claims of sovereign immunity and asset ownership in numerous jurisdictions
- Identified and seized aircraft ordered on behalf of the country at the factory hangars, working alongside Canadian legal advisers to prepare a successful defense against potential challenges to the seizure based on alleged non-ownership and sovereign immunity.
The outcome
As a result of our strategy and careful execution across numerous relevant jurisdictions, and in collaboration with the client’s legal advisers, we successfully negotiated a settlement to the full satisfaction of our client.