Bolloré group property seized in Burkina Faso

The Bolloré Africa Logistics group is essential on the African continent.

ERIC PIERMONT / AFP

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3 min

In Burkina Faso, the legal drama between the Bolloré group and Sopam SA - a company owned by Burkinabè businessman Mohamed Sogli - continues.

The latter is suing the French group for damage suffered during the transport of an electric group from France to Burkina Faso. 

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With our correspondent in Ouagadougou,

Yaya Boudani

In 2010, the Sopam SA group entrusted the transport of an electric group to the company Sagatrans, a subsidiary of the Bolloré group, from Saint-Nazaire in France to Komsilga, in Burkina Faso. But it is more than a year after the goods were delivered, according to Maitre Jean-Charles Tougma, one of the lawyers of the Sopam SA group. “

They forgot the power plant at the port of Abidjan. The consequences are that the goods, instead, suffered damage. We have initiated a procedure to hold this carrier responsible. 

"

After expertise, once in Ouagadougou, the electric unit had to be refurbished. The cost of the works has been estimated at around two billion FCFA, or 3.618 million euros. The company Sagatrans then refuses to take charge of the work, according to Maitre Jean-Charles Tougma, lawyers of the Sopam SA group. “

Upon receipt, such damage was found that it was impossible to take delivery. Hence the call for expertise and I make it clear that it was the expert from Bolloré who came to do the expertise and stop the cost of new goods. 

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After eleven years of proceedings, the three subsidiaries of the Bolloré group were therefore ordered to pay it jointly the sum of CFA francs 14,629,036,497 (more than € 22 million), which represents the compensation related to the damage suffered by the group. electricity and the delay in its delivery to Ouagadougou.

Faced with what the lawyers of the Sopam SA group consider as a refusal to execute the decision, the property and bank accounts of three subsidiaries of the Bolloré group have been seized since June 14.

The officials of the Bolloré group in Burkina Faso did not wish to speak on the subject when a bailiff was executing the decision.

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• Burkina Faso

• France