Lithuania will not return Arik Air’s Boeing 737 to Nigeria after it was arrested three years ago, a Lithuanian court has finally ruled. The plane was arrested for debts of nearly 2.3 million euros to a subsidiary of the German company Lufthansa and is at Kaunas airport.
The Nigerian Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) failed to get Lithuania to recognize and enforce the country’s court order, on the basis of which it could fly.
On May 3, the Supreme Court of Lithuania (SCL) refused to accept AMCON’s complaint – the latter appealed against the decision of the Court of Appeal, in which the Court did not recognize the decision of the Federal High Court of Nigeria and did not allow his claim in Lithuania.
Last December, a Nigerian court ruled that the seized plane and its engine belonged to AMCON, while the country’s asset manager tried to prove that it and Arik Air were foreign business entities that Lithuania does not regulate in any way. way. Arik Air agreed with this and said AMCON had the right to nationalize the company’s assets.
In January this year, the Lithuanian Court of Appeal stated that the two countries do not have bilateral or multilateral agreements on legal assistance and recognition of judgments, therefore, in this case, other acts legal apply.
Pursuant to the German court’s decision, almost in January 2020 bailiff Marek Petrovsky seized the aircraft stored at Kaunas airport in order to recover Arik Air’s debt to Lufthansa for the maintenance and repair of Lufthansa Technik Aero Alzey aircraft in the amount of 2.3 million euros.
Petrovsky told BNS that after the court decision there are no more obstacles to continue collecting the debt from Arik Air – first of all, he is supposed to complete the valuation of the aircraft and of his engine and then sell it.
Source: delfi
