Paris Court of Appeal, 19 September 2024, n° 23/09300
The Paris Court of Appeal rendered on 19 September 2024 a new ruling in the file opposing for decades the company Commisimpex to the Republic of Congo.
Since the two arbitral awards that it obtained against the State of Congo in 2000 and 2013 and their French exequatur decisions of 2002 and 2014, the company Commisimpex practices enforcement proceedings in France in order to recover its claim against the State.
Among these measures, Commisimpex seized in Bordeaux in 2020 a Dassault Falcon aircraft belonging to the Republic of Congo. The Execution Judge of Paris then the Paris Court of Appeal and finally the Court of Cassation in a ruling of 13 March 2024 all rejected the appeals of the State against this seizure.
It is in these conditions that in 2023, the presidency of the Republic of Congo formed a third-party opposition by summoning the Republic of Congo and the company Commisimpex before the Paris Court of Appeal.
The presidency maintained that it would be the owner of the aircraft, so that the seizure would have been practiced on a good not belonging to the debtor, the Republic of Congo.
The company Commisimpex replied that the third-party opposition would be inadmissible in that the presidency of the Republic of Congo would not be distinct from the Republic of Congo, which never discussed the ownership of the seized aircraft in the other proceedings.
The Paris Court of Appeal decides that the presidency of the Republic of Congo is neither more nor less than an organ, an institution of the Congolese State itself without legal personality nor assets distinct from those of the State. Furthermore, if the registration certificates of the aircraft mention: “Name of the owner: Presidency of the Republic of Congo”, it is only because the Dassault Falcon in question is assigned to the use of the President. Moreover, the Republic of Congo never contested, in all the proceedings that it engaged to contest the seizure, being the owner of the aircraft. Finally, in public international law, there exists a principle of unity of the State which opposes that the organs of the State have a distinct legal personality from that of the State.
The Paris Court of Appeal therefore declares inadmissible the third-party opposition action of the presidency of the Republic of Congo which merges with the Republic of Congo itself.
Ultimately, when a creditor seizes a good of a State in application of an exequatur decision, the presidency and more broadly any organ or institution of this State cannot contest this enforcement measure by invoking that they would be the true owner.