The official Cuban press has reported this Friday, for the first time, the trial that is taking place in London against Cuba and its National Bank (BNC) to demand payment of part of its foreign debt.
In a note published by the Superintendence of the National Bank of Cuba and disseminated by Cubadebate, refer to the plaintiff, the investment fund CRF I Ltd., the London Club’s main creditor of Cuban debt, as “a vulture fund constituted as a mercantile company offshore in Grand Cayman”.
The statement says, with defective wording, that in the process before the British High Court of Justice “it is decided whether CRF is a creditor of the BNC and Cuba (for the amount of 72 million euros), who defend that CRF is not a creditor of the BNC or of Cuba and never has been”.
In addition, it explains that this public debt was contracted by the BNC “before 1997, when it had functions as the Central Bank” and that since then, “the BNC has no power to act on behalf of the Cuban Government” nor “approve assignment of public debt without the prior authorization of the Ministry of Finance and Prices and the Council of Ministers”.
This paragraph alludes, without saying so specifically, to the conviction of several officials for alleged bribes paid by CRF to get them to approve the transfer of public debt and, with it, harm the country, which would have been the main line of defense of La Havana in London.
“The BNC and Cuba have never ignored their debts and have always maintained their interest in negotiating with their legitimate creditors”
As published cybercuba last september, the People’s Provincial Court of Havana had tried “under strict secrecy” the director of Operations of the BNC, Raúl Olivera Lozano, in 2021, and sentenced him to 13 years in prison for bribery and other crimes. In addition, he sentenced the entity’s secretary, María Teresa Compte Zubeldía, to five years, the same as another official from the foreign debt department, and one year to the president, René Lazo Fernández.
However, the independent newspaper continued, the strategy did not work, and the British court rejected the claim.
Before the oral hearing, which will begin on January 24, the island’s lawyers they withdrew their claimsreported Cuban newspaper, although, as the note published by the National Bank demonstrates, the regime continues to suggest that the debt is the product of this sort of internal fraud.
“The BNC and Cuba have never ignored their debts and have always maintained their interest in negotiating with their legitimate creditors,” the statement asserted.
The text does not mention that in 2021, CRF offered the government of Miguel Díaz-Canel convert 1,400 million dollars of the values that it owed into a zero coupon bond with no payments until 2026. According to what the Bloomberg economic agency published at the time, which had access to the letter that had been addressed by the financial company to the Cuban president, the messages sent to Cuban diplomats and the president’s office were not returned.
The lack of receptivity of the Cuban side caused the CRF to file a non-compliance lawsuit in February 2020 that is about to be settled in London
The London Club, made up of the Stancroft Trust, Adelante Exotic and CRF funds, had been making various kinds of offers to Cuba for years in order to collect the money owed to it. In 2018, relief was offered for an unknown amount, but which was described as an “opportunity to reach an amicable agreement” by Rodrigo Olivares-Caminal, the Club’s coordinator.
Raúl Castro, who turned his brother Fidel’s policy against paying the debt, said that 2018 would be a “complicated year for the nation’s external finances,” but he was inclined to comply with the agreements made in the previous years with other creditors such as Russia and the Paris Club, which encouraged the British to make this type of offer.
In the end, the lack of receptivity on the Cuban side caused the CRF to file a non-compliance lawsuit in February 2020 that is about to be settled in London.
Cuba received significant relief in 2014 with the cancellation of 90% of its debt of 35,000 million dollars with the former Soviet Union, of which the Russian Federation was a legatee. Havana made a commitment to Moscow to invest the remaining 3.5 billion in joint projects on the island.
In 2015, the Paris Club and Cuba reached an agreement whereby they forgave the island 8.500 of the 11.100 million dollars that it had accumulated in debt and interest since 1986 on the condition that Havana pay the rest with a cap in 2018. .
However, the agreed restructuring schedule has been breached systematically by the Island and, although its creditors accepted a moratorium, they are considering imposing sanctions.
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