By John Lee.
A court in London today ruled that the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) has lost its case against Goldman Sachs.
The LIA had alleged that Goldman executives exerted undue influence over its officials regarding a series of transactions through which the fund claims to have lost more than $1 billion. Goldman is reported to have earned about $222 million from the trades.
Commenting on the decision, the President of the Interim Steering Committee of the Libyan Investment Authority, Dr Ali Mahmoud Hassan, said:
“The Libyan Investment Authority undertook a strategy to secure its assets and grow their market value. The leadership of the LIA has always been clear that it would do all it could to pursue those who exploited the fund in the late 2000s.
"As a first step, the LIA embarked in the end of 2013 to pursue court cases against Goldman Sachs and Société Générale.
"Today’s ruling will not break our resolve and we remain focused on the other litigations raised by the previous Board of Directors to put right the wrongs suffered elsewhere in the past. Libya’s wealth must be returned to the people of Libya.”
The full 120-page judgement can be viewed here.
(Sources: WSJ, LIA, New York Times)
