The start of the British court trial on Monday in London is uncertain due to the appeal over the immunity of the President of the Republic, Filipe Nyusi and the possibility of an out-of-court settlement.l.

According to Lusa, the trial is the culmination of almost four years of litigation in the British courts, to which Mozambique appealed alleging bribery, conspiracy to defraud by unlawful means and dishonest assistance to cancel debts and claim financial compensation worth millions of dollars.

Meanwhile, on Friday, the Court of Appeal allowed the shipping group Privinvest to appeal against a decision that had granted Mozambican head of state Filipe Nyusi immunity from this case.

"Whether or not the trial should be postponed must therefore depend on whether any party requests it and, of course, on the judge's considered opinion as to whether such a postponement should be granted. This is a matter for him," said Judge Elizabeth Laing in her decision, quoted by Lusa.

In recent days there have also been reports in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg that Mozambique is negotiating an out-of-court settlement to drop the case against Credit Suisse, which has since been acquired by the UBS group.

Proceedings in the London Commercial Court, part of the High Court, began in 2019.

The Attorney General's Office (PGR), on behalf of the Mozambican state, has started legal action to annul the guarantees given on a loan to the Credit Suisse bank on behalf of the state company ProIndicus, worth 622 million dollars, as well as other associated expenses.

The Mozambican government is also claiming compensation for "macroeconomic losses" of more than a billion dollars resulting from the financial crisis created by the suspension of funding from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international donors, according to calculations revealed in court by lawyers representing the PGR.

Mozambique claims that the country was the victim of a conspiracy and that Privinvest and its owner, Iskandar Safa, paid bribes of more than 136 million dollars to senior Mozambican and Credit Suisse officials involved in the negotiations.

The case dates back to 2013 and 2014, when the then finance minister, Manuel Chang, approved loans from three Mozambican state-owned companies (Proinducus, Ematus and MAM) to the banks Credit Suisse and VTB to finance the purchase of tuna fishing boats and maritime safety equipment.

The case was uncovered in 2016, became known as "hidden debts", which were estimated at around 2.7 billion dollars, according to the Mozambican Public Prosecutor's Office, and led to legal proceedings in the United States and Mozambique.

Mozambique's PGR argues that the official guarantees given to authorize the loans should not be considered valid because they were obtained through corruption.

Both Credit Suisse and Privinvest deny wrongdoing or responsibility for any illicit payments.

In 2021, the Swiss bank was fined 475 million pounds by financial supervisors in the US, UK and Switzerland for failing to identify the risk of bribery and forgave 200 million dollars of Mozambique's debt.

The judgment covers 11 lawsuits and related arbitrations, including the Russian bank VTB and other investors and financial institutions who feel aggrieved.

The complexity of the trial is reflected in the expected duration of 12 weeks, until the end of December.