Payment of statutory demand doesn’t breach sanctions on LIA; Court of Appeal judgment in Maud

The Court of Appeal has allowed the Libyan Investment Authority’s (the LIA’s) appeal against a High Court judgment setting aside the LIA’s statutory demand for payment under a 2008 guarantee made by Glenn Maud – Libyan Investment Authority v Maud [2016] EWCA Civ 788 (see previous blog). A link to the judgment is here.

Mr Maud had successfully argued at first instance that any payment he made to LIA would breach the EU’s sanctions relating to Libya, which froze LIA’s assets, and therefore the demand for payment should be set aside. The Court of Appeal said the EU’s sanctions measures must be construed as far as possible compatibly with the UN Security Council Resolutions they were intended to implement, and noted the easing of UN sanctions on the LIA “to enable the Libyan people to have the benefit” of its assets. Mr Maud argued that his guarantee fell within the definition of funds, and so payment under the guarantee would breach the requirement that the LIA’s existing funds or assets should remain frozen. The Court held that payment of the guarantee was caught by a separate prohibition on making funds available to the LIA, from which EU and UN sanctions provide a derogation for payments due under agreements that were concluded before the person was designated and paid into frozen accounts and which in any event no longer applies to the LIA, as is the case with Mr Maud’s guarantee to the LIA. The Court also dismissed Mr Maud’s argument that the LIA’s statutory demand for payment was a form of claim, and so by not setting it aside the Court would be satisfying a claim on behalf of the LIA in contravention of a prohibition on doing so under EU sanctions.