In a precedent for the AfDB, its associated African Legal Support Facility (ALSF) has been asked by Tunisia’s transitional government to help track down and recover several hundreds of millions of dollars in state assets that were stolen during the Ben Ali regime.
It may also be asked to work on locating stolen assets from Côte d’Ivoire and Egypt. Established in 2010 as an associated but legally independent entity from the AfDB, the ALSF offers services such as help with natural resource and procurement contract negotiations, asset searches and recoveries, as well as training and capacity building for government legal teams.
The ALSF will commission top international law firms, selected on the basis of independence and technical competence, to do much of the work. The facility also offers help to states that find their deeply discounted debt has been bought by ‘vulture funds’ demanding payment at face value.
This article was first published in the June 2011 edition of The Africa Report
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