Cuba accuses a private creditor that sues it of being illegitimate

The Cuban Central Bank (BCC) admitted this Friday for the first time that it is facing a legal process before the British courts brought by the investment fund CRF I Ltd, a private creditor, whose lawsuit it considers illegitimate.

“The Superintendence of the Central Bank of Cuba informs that legal proceedings are currently taking place in London before the British High Court of Justice for a debt recovery claim against the Banco Nacional de Cuba (BNC) and the Republic of Cuba,” he said. in a statement posted on its website.

In this litigation “it is decided whether CRF”, which the BCC describes as a “vulture fund” based in Grand Cayman, “is a creditor of the BNC and of Cuba” in the case of non-payment of a debt for the amount “of 72 million of euros”.

According to the BCC, in this specific case the “CRF is not a creditor of the BNC or of Cuba and never has been.”

The president of the US-Cuba Economic and Trade Council, John Kavulich, based in New York, explained to AFP that the trial will begin on January 23 in London and will last “approximately eight days.”

The British investment fund CRF I Ltd owns the majority (1.5 billion dollars) of the Cuban debt with private creditors, which is managed by the London Club.

For more than a decade, this fund has been trying in vain to negotiate an agreement with Havana, in 2021 it proposed a restructuring offer with a 60% discount, and the current legal process against the island began in 2020.

Cuba is facing its worst economic crisis in three decades of its last three decades, due to the tightening of the United States embargo and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, which substantially affected tourism, the country’s economic engine.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel has insisted on the country’s willingness to honor the payment of its debts.

“The BNC and Cuba have never ignored their debts and have always maintained their interest in negotiating with their legitimate creditors,” the Central Bank reiterated this Friday.

Regarding Cuba’s external debt with the States, the Cuban government and the Paris Club, which groups creditor countries, reached an agreement in 2021 to give the island additional time to honor various payments made in 2015 on its foreign debt.

The pact between the Cuban government and the Paris Club in 2015 meant a reduction of 8.5 billion on the 11.1 billion dollars owed. The rest would become investment projects or be phased out until 2033.