Angola’s Isabel dos Santos loses fight against freezing order

Angolan billionaire Isabel dos Santos on Wednesday lost her fight against an application to freeze up to £580m of her assets in a lawsuit at London’s high court.

Dos Santos — Africa’s first female billionaire, whose father, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, ruled Angola for 38 years until 2017 — has faced corruption accusations for years. She denies the allegations and says she is the target of a long-running political vendetta. Dos Santos is being sued by Angolan telecom operator Unitel.

The company asked the high court to grant a worldwide freezing order over Dos Santos’ assets at a hearing in November and judge Robert Bright granted the order on Wednesday. The judge gave Dos Santos until January to provide Unitel with a disclosure of her assets, which include property in London, Monaco and Dubai.

Unitel is suing Dos Santos over loans made to Dutch company Unitel International Holdings (UIH) in 2012 and 2013, when Dos Santos was a Unitel director, to fund UIH’s acquisition of shares in telecom companies.

The loans were not repaid and about £300m is outstanding, according to Unitel, which successfully had Dos Santos added to the lawsuit in May.

But Dos Santos, who claims to be the victim of a “campaign of oppression” by Angola, says Unitel is itself responsible for UIH’s inability to repay the loans because of its alleged role in Angola’s unlawful seizure of UIH’s assets.

Unitel denies any involvement in the alleged asset seizure and said at last month’s hearing that Dos Santos is trying to turn the case into “another battle in a PR war against her father’s successor”, Joao Lourenco.

Unitel and UIH are not related despite bearing similar names, and Dos Santos, who owns UIH, resigned as a director of Unitel in 2020.

Dos Santos also argued that her assets have been frozen or seized in other countries, including Angola and Portugal, which meant another freezing order was unnecessary.

However, Bright said in a written ruling on Wednesday that he does not accept that “the other freezing orders mean that it is not just and convenient for this court to grant a further order”.

Update: December 20 2023
This story now has more background information.

Reuters