The case opposes Webcor ITP Limited to the State of Gabon. This Malta-based company, which has no known activity, signed a framework contract on June 12, 2010 for the construction and operation of the Libreville Grand Exchange. For this purpose, a local company is created, on behalf of Grand Marché de Libreville. On 16 November 2012, the Grand Marche de Libreville company obtained a tax convention that cleared and taxed almost all of these purchase transactions during the construction period. This tax treaty will subsequently be denounced as not applicable, for lack of ratification by Parliament.
Webcor and its local company start work only in 2014, four years after the first contract signature. This is essentially clearing the ground. In May 2015, following the non-application of the tax measures of the 2012 agreement, a dispute arose between Webcor and the City of Libreville, the latter asking Webcor to stop the work, because of non-compliance with the contractual terms prior to the agreement. contract. On November 10, 2015, WEBCOR seized the International Chamber of Commerce, which is headquartered in Paris, to settle its dispute not only with the mayor of Libreville, but also with the Gabonese Republic. Making a calculation on the income they estimate they would have earned over the entire concession period, and denouncing the contractual break, Webcor estimates to have been leased 45 million dollars, or about 26 billion FCFA. – The final conclusions of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) are issued on June 21, 2018. The ICC rejects all axes of defense of the Gabonese Republic, reproaching it for not having paid the 300 000 USD that Gabon owes it to the arbitration fees (172.8 million FCFA) and ultimately condemns it to the amount of 65 billion FCFA! – Gabon has appealed the decision of the ICC to the Court of Appeal of Paris.
As a new fact, Gabon’s line of defense will change from that presented to the ICC, and this time focus on the fact, says a source close to the record, that “Webcor deliberately created this situation from the beginning, with dishonest intentions, and corrupting actors in Gabon that allowed him to find himself in the situation to report his rights before the international commercial justice, with leonine contracts at the base and no financial capacity to actually deliver “.
Both parties are eagerly awaiting the verdict of the Paris Court of Appeal. This case concerns more than one of the weak due diligence committed by the State of Gabon at the time of writing this contract. Our confreres in Gabonreview who have rumored this case speak of real “vampire companies”. “They enter into negotiations with states or low-cost communities and sell them with promises of investment in public procurement concessions. Once the gear is launched, they are complicities in the administrations of the prey countries to obtain the signing of leonine contracts. Key moment of the process, they are busy hobbling the progress of the case to make it run away at the slightest racket, then to do everything to bring it to international justice and thus make very expensive these developing States by threatening them seize their property abroad, “says Gabonreview.
What about the public interest clause
In French administrative law and most administrative rights inspired by French law, there is a public interest clause that basically says that if the community considers that the public interest is threatened by any contractual clause (between two individuals or between a State, a community and an individual), exorbitant measures of common law can be taken and thus exceed the contractual clauses. “This doctrine of law does not exist in international law, and it is a major problem, because any private operator, if it includes leonine clauses in an official contract, can make its right prevail in international courses, even on aberrant clauses like Dubai World Port with Djibouti, which had granted itself the monopoly of port exploitation of the Djiboutian coasts … “, explains an economist, who requested anonymity.
