The Hague (AFP)

Accused of corruption, Isabel dos Santos will have to return more than 400 million euros of shares to the Angolan oil company Sonangol, a new setback for the richest woman in Africa and daughter of former Angolan president Jose Eduardo dos Santos.

In a decision dated July 23, the Netherlands Arbitration Institute (NAI) asserts that the transaction by which it acquired in 2006 an indirect 6% stake in the Portuguese oil and gas group Galp Energia, via a Dutch company, is "null and void".

As a result, it must return its shares, with a total value of 422 million euros to the public company Sonangol, therefore to Angola, says the arbitration decision, obtained Friday by AFP.

The transaction, via the holding company Exem Energy, which belonged to the husband of Mrs. dos Santos, took place under "anti-economic conditions" and at prices "not in accordance with the market", argues the legally binding decision, which still evokes "kleptocratic transactions" thanks to which Isabel dos Santos and her husband personally enriched themselves with property of the Angolan state.

After paying a 15% deposit from a company in the Virgin Islands, Isabel dos Santos then paid, when she became CEO of Sonangol in 2016, the remainder of the purchase price of her indirect stake in Galp in kwanza, Angolan local currency worthless outside the country, rather than euros as contractually agreed, says the ruling.

Exem's lawyers are contesting "the decision taken by the panel of three arbitrators who decided that only the allegations presented by Sonangol were sufficient and did not rule on the evidence and documents presented" by the defense, they explained to AFP from Lisbon.

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"In this arbitration award, the political narrative clearly prevails over the legal analysis," said Exem's defense, adding that "a" legal appeal will be filed with the competent court "to challenge it.

- Illicit enrichment -

Nicknamed the Princess by the Angolan street, Isabel dos Santos, 48, who has denied any wrongdoing, is accused of corruption by the justice of her country.

It is also the subject of an investigation in Portugal, a former colonial power.

She is also implicated by the "Luanda Leaks", investigation by a consortium of 120 journalists based on the leak of 715,000 documents whose conclusions are damning for her and her husband - the Congolese businessman Sindika Dokolo who died in October in a diving accident: the couple "siphoned off the country's crates".

This stake in Galp's capital represents only a small part of the myriad of investments in Angola and Portugal of Mrs. dos Santos, worth around 3 billion dollars according to the American magazine Forbes.

The businesswoman was named "Africa's first female billionaire" in 2013 by the magazine.

But with the arrival to power in Angola of Joao Lourenço in 2017, the clouds have gathered over his couple.

In December 2019, the assets of the couple, who frequented the beaches of St-Tropez and London palaces, were frozen by the Angolan justice which accused them of illicit enrichment and money laundering and evoked the embezzlement of more than one billion dollars from public oil and diamond groups, in a country where a third of the population lives below the poverty line.

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In addition to Sonangol, whom she directed towards the end of her father's long reign (1979-2017), Isabel had increased investments in telephony, diamond mines, banking and even real estate, in her country and in Portugal. .

Before leaving the presidency in 2017, her father had appointed her as head of the powerful national oil company Sonangol, a position which the current head of state, who has promised to clean up, sacked her in 2018. .

© 2021 AFP