The Granma daily, the island’s leading newspaper, provides information to broaden knowledge on the process that has been taking place since April 2023, and recalls that the High Court of England and Wales ruled in favor of the Republic of Cuba in the lawsuit filed by the vulture fund CRF I Limited.
The decision of the English Court was a resounding victory for Cuba in the British courts, the article stresses.
The following is a series of questions and answers provided by the newspaper in order to better understand the ongoing process.
Why the Cuban State won last year’s lawsuit in London?
The victory was clear, resounding, overwhelming, but not because Cuba interpreted it that way. It was a victory because the plaintiffs did not achieve what they were seeking; their main purpose was to obtain a court ruling condemning the Cuban State, and the judge in her judgment, which is public, accessible in the High Court of England and Wales, declared the immunity of the Cuban State in this lawsuit before the English jurisdiction.
This means that the Republic of Cuba has no obligation whatsoever to respond with its patrimony to this lawsuit, in other words, the Cuban State is totally out of the litigation.
Why have some media, unofficial sources and the vulture fund itself insisted that Cuba lost?
This judicial process has been accompanied by an intense media campaign generated, fundamentally, from platforms against Cuba. Lies and incorrect approaches have been repeated which, for the most part, lack objective and real support regarding the true course of events.
The essence of the process, Cuba’s arguments accepted by the English Court, and the sentence that favors the State have been obviated or manipulated in those platforms.
The vulture fund itself has maintained behaviors contrary to the logic of the process, which denotes disrespect and disregard for the judicial rules established by the Court of that country.
What would have meant for the Republic of Cuba to have lost the process?
The main objective of the vulture fund was to obtain a conviction against the Cuban State and with it the possibility of debating, in a new trial, the merits of the claim, that is to say, the payment of a debt to someone who never was and never is its creditor.
To maintain the State would have implied continuing the process to debate whether or not that debt should be paid to a vulture fund that has no relation whatsoever with the Republic of Cuba.
What is the focus of the debate in this Appeal Hearing?
Both parties reaffirm the positions held during the process. While the vulture fund persists in presenting itself as a legitimate creditor of the Banco Nacional de Cuba, the latter ratifies that CRF is unrelated to its financial instruments and that it has no relationship with the Republic of Cuba.
What are the consequences for Banco Nacional de Cuba to remain in the proceedings?
In April 2023 the English Court declared that it did not have jurisdiction to hear the claim against the Cuban State, and that it does have jurisdiction for the claim against Banco Nacional de Cuba.
However, the latter does not mean in any case that the Bank must pay any debt, nor that any assets or state patrimony of the nation will be seized. This is a jurisdictional proceeding, which means that it only decides on the power of the English Court to decide on the claim made by the vulture fund.
mh/ro/tdd
