Central Bank of Cuba reports on legal proceedings in London

 HAVANA, Cuba, Jan 13 (ACN) The Superintendence of the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC) informed today about a judicial proceeding being carried out in London, UK, before the British High Court of Justice, for a debt recovery claim against the National Bank of Cuba (BNC) and the Republic of Cuba.

The BNC and Cuba have never ignored their debts and have always maintained the interest of negotiating with their legitimate creditors, the bank assured in an informative statement published on its website Friday.

According to the statement, both Cuban parties are represented in the proceedings and will defend their rights before the investment firm CRF I Limited, the plaintiff in the case, a vulture fund incorporated as an off shore corporation in Grand Cayman.

In the process it will be decided whether CRF is a creditor of the BNC and Cuba (for the amount of 72 million euros), explained the Superintendency of the BCC, a technical body, related to the inspection, surveillance and control of the institutions that carry out financial and banking activities in the country.

The BNC and Cuba defend that this company is not its creditor, and never has been, warned the BCC in the statement, and added that the object of this procedure is public debt, because it was contracted by the National Bank before 1997, when it had the functions of a Central Bank.

Since that year, the BNC does not have the power to act on behalf of the Cuban government or to approve the assignment of public debt without the prior authorization of the Ministry of Finance and Prices and the Council of Ministers, since in no case can it authorize the assignment of guarantees granted by the State, the so-called sovereign guarantees, it added.

The BCC statement reminded that vulture funds, such as CRF I Limited, buy in the secondary market, at auction prices, the debts issued by countries, to claim the immediate payment of their 100 % under threat of legal action; the Superintendency will inform in due time the results of this process, it concluded.