Een rechtszaak met als inzet een bedrag van 2,1 miljard USD zet de Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) tegenover de Société Générale.

1. 1-2-2019 Libyan Investment Authority v Societe Generale SA & 5 Ors (2016) — Maitland Chambers
https://www.maitlandchambers.com/information/recent-cases/libyan-investment-authority-v-societe-generale-sa-5-ors-2016-1 2/4
Summary
A confidentiality club was necessary to
protect persons in Libya who were reported
to have received sizeable sums of money
from a source associated with the Gaddafi
regime, even though that might to some
extent inhibit the claimant's ability to
prepare its case.
Facts
The claimant Libyan Investment Authority
applied for an order that the confidentiality club
applicable to the proceedings be set aside and
replaced by a restricted information regime
(RIR).
The claimant alleged that certain transactions,
which involved the payment of US$2.1 billion by
it to the first defendant and its affiliates, were
part of a fraudulent and corrupt scheme
involving the payment of US$58.4 million by the
first defendant to the fifth defendant, via the
sixth defendant Panamanian company. It was
alleged that the claimant's employees and
officers had been influenced by bribes and
threats to cause the claimant to enter the
disputed transactions. It was said that the fifth
defendant was able to effect that scheme
through his links with the regime of Colonel
Gaddafi. The fifth defendant had disclosed the
names of more than 50 individuals who
received part of the proceeds of the payments
made to the sixth defendant or other sums, on
terms that the names were only provided to
those within a confidentiality club, since wider
disclosure would expose them, and their
families and property in Libya to violence. The
confidentiality club provided that confidential
material could only be communicated between
relevant persons, such as the parties' solicitors,
by means of a secure system. The claimant
wanted the club replaced by an RIR on the
grounds that the club seriously interfered with
its ability to prepare its case for trial, in
particular by taking statements from possible
witnesses. The RIR would not require the
information to be communicated only by way of
QBD (Commercial)
Teare J
Judgment date
9 March 2016
References
Members
Paul Girolami QC
George Hayman QC
Libyan Investment Authority v
Societe Generale SA & 5 Ors
(2016)

2. 1-2-2019 Libyan Investment Authority v Societe Generale SA & 5 Ors (2016) — Maitland Chambers
https://www.maitlandchambers.com/information/recent-cases/libyan-investment-authority-v-societe-generale-sa-5-ors-2016-1 3/4
information to be communicated only by way of
a secure system and would permit confidential
information to be disclosed to third parties so
long as they had given an undertaking to keep it
confidential and to submit to the jurisdiction of
the English court. The issues were: (i) whether
the claimant was entitled to make the
application in the light of a previous decision of
the court concerning the club; (ii) whether
disclosure of the individuals' names would give
rise to a risk to life, limb or property; (iii) if so,
what were the reasonable and proportionate
steps required to protect them.
Held
(1) The court had previously considered the
position of four individuals and decided that two
should be covered by the club and two should
not. However, the court had not on that
occasion considered and determined whether in
principle there was a need for the club. The
issue whether the club was a reasonable and
proportionate method of protecting the
individuals from the relevant risk had in effect
been reserved for a later hearing and the
claimant was not prevented from asking the
court to consider that question (see paras 9­14
of judgment).
(2) The imposition of a confidentiality club
required a real and immediate risk to life, limb
or property, Libyan Investment Authority v
Societe Generale SA [2015] EWHC 550 (QB)
considered and Rabone v Pennine Care NHS
Foundation Trust [2012] UKSC 2, [2012] 2 A.C.
72 followed. Persons in Libya were not within
the jurisdiction and were not protected by the
ECHR art.2 and art.3, Al­Skeini v United
Kingdom (55721/07) (2011) 53 E.H.R.R. 18
applied. However, the test at common law was
the same as that under art.2 and art.3 save that
subjective fears of a risk to life and limb could
be taken into account at common law even in
the absence of objective verification. It was not
suggested that that difference was relevant in
the instant case (paras 15­26).
(3) Those within the risk profile, namely persons
in Libya who were reported as having received
sizeable sums of money from a source
associated with the Gaddafi regime, were still at
risk in 2016 from criminal and politically linked
militias in search of financial gain. The risk was
real and immediate, albeit low. Only some of
the individuals were within the risk profile
(para.52).
(4) The reasonable and proportionate way to
protect the individuals within the risk profile was

3. 1-2-2019 Libyan Investment Authority v Societe Generale SA & 5 Ors (2016) — Maitland Chambers
https://www.maitlandchambers.com/information/recent-cases/libyan-investment-authority-v-societe-generale-sa-5-ors-2016-1 4/4
protect the individuals within the risk profile was
to retain the club but to amend it so as to
incorporate a "negative resolution procedure" in
relation to third parties to whom the claimant
wished to divulge confidential information.
Under that procedure the claimant would first
inform the other parties of the name of such a
third party with a short description of their
identity. The other parties would then have the
opportunity to object to disclosure and the court
would if necessary rule on the objection. The
confidentiality club order, as amended, might
inhibit to some extent the claimant's ability to
prepare its case, but the protection it afforded to
the individuals who were at risk was the
minimum necessary (paras 67­68).