Judges at the the United Nations’ top court sided with France on Friday in a long-running legal tug-of-war with Equatorial Guinea over the sale of a mansion on one of Paris’ poshest avenues.
The African country filed a case at the International Court of Justice in 2022, alleging France is violating international law by refusing to return assets seized during a corruption investigation into Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, a vice president of Equatorial Guinea and the son of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.
Equatorial Guinea asked the court for a series of urgent orders to return the mansion on one of Paris’s most prestigious streets, Avenue Foch, and to prevent France from selling the building.
France confiscated the building in 2021 as part of the corruption investigation.
Presiding judge Yuji Iwasawa said Equatorial Guinea “has not demonstrated” that it has a “plausible right to the return of the building.”
No sale imminent
Lawyers for France rejected the need for provisional measures, telling judges no sale was imminent and the dispute should be resolved via negotiation.
Carmelo Nvono-Ncá, Equatorial Guinea’s agent, told judges that France’s approach “may be described as paternalistic and even neo-colonial” and his country couldn’t “accept such disdain for our sovereignty.”
In 2020, the international court ruled that the building was a private residence, not a diplomatic outpost, rejecting an earlier claim from Equatorial Guinea that the seizure violated international law.
Obiang was convicted in 2017, and given a three-year suspended sentence over corruption. French authorities seized money, luxury vehicles and the building.
