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A $400 million case brought by Angolan telecoms operator Unitel against a company she controls may be personally joined by Isabel dos Santos, the rich daughter of the former president of Angola. This was decided by the London High Court on Thursday.
For loans given in 2012 and 2013 when dos Santos was a director of Unitel to fund UIH’s purchase of telecom business shares, Unitel International Holdings (UIH) was sued by Unitel in 2020.
The loans were allegedly not repaid, and Unitel is still due a debt of roughly $395 million plus interest. Although the two companies share a name, they are unrelated, and dos Santos, the owner of UIH, resigned from his role as a director of Unitel in 2020.
Dos Santos, the first female millionaire in Africa, asked to be personally included in Unitel’s action against UIH. Her father, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, ruled Angola for 38 years prior to 2017.
Judge Mark Pelling ruled on Thursday that Dos Santos should be included in the ongoing dispute.
He asserted that Unitel has a “realistic prospect of success” in response to the allegations that dos Santos had disregarded her duties as a director of Unitel.In court documents submitted on Tuesday by her attorney Richard Hill, Dos Santos “vehemently denies that she has violated any of her director’s obligations.
Her attorneys believe that Unitel is partly to blame for UIH’s inability to pay due to its alleged involvement in the “illegal seizure by the Angolan state of UIH’s assets.” Unitel denies any involvement in the seizure of the assets.
Dos Santos has long been the subject of allegations of corruption, including accusations made by Angola that she and her husband misappropriated $1 billion in government funds to companies they owned stakes in while her father was in office, most notably Sonangol, the largest oil company in the world.
Last year, authorities in Angola seized about $1 billion worth of her assets, and authorities in Portugal have also seized further properties linked to her. Dos Santos, who states that she resides in Dubai, has vehemently denied all of the allegations made against her, and her attorneys have referred to them as a “political conspiracy.”
