The complaint was registered on March 28 at the International Center for the Resolution of Investment Disputes (ISCID) under the Agreement on Promotion and Reciprocal Protection of Investments between Portugal and Angola and refers to a process in which the businessman claims compensation of 112 million dollars (110.3 million euros) due to alleged expropriation of electrical turbines.
The company has been involved in legal litigation with the Angolan State since 2019, when several contracts with the company were terminated due to alleged irregularities, accusations that the company rejects, guaranteeing that it had alerted the Angolan executive and had carried out several projects without receiving payment.
In December 2019, four of the company's turbines, parts and consumables were seized from AEnergy, as part of a precautionary measure brought by the National Asset Recovery Service of the Attorney General's Office due to "indications of breach of contracts".
The process dates back to 2017, when the energy company, led by Portuguese Ricardo Machado, was hired to build and operate several plants. The agreement was financed through a 1.1 billion dollars credit line with a unit of General Electric (GE), which stipulated that AEnergy purchase eight GE turbines for those plants.
In a lawsuit filed in May 2021, AEnergy alleged that GE falsified documents to defame the electricity company and take over its work and accused the Angolan Government of agreeing to the scheme so that it could cancel the contracts before full payment and seize the four turbines for your benefit.
Angola was acquitted, in the first instance, in the action brought by AEnergy, because the Court of Appeal of the Second District of New York understood that the appropriate forum to judge the case was the Angolan one, and the company also lost the appeal.
In April 2022, the North American court refused to judge a case brought by AEnergy against the Angolan State, related to the termination of contracts it had signed with the Government to build and operate thermoelectric plants, referring the case to Luanda, a decision confirmed in a ruling from November last year in which a North American federal court refused to re-evaluate Aenergy's case.
