Libya seeks $100m as Zimbabwe’s debt disputes deepen

Libya’s central bank is suing Zimbabwe’s finance minister and national oil company for more than $100 million, the latest development in a spiraling debt crisis that’s bedeviled the southern African nation for a quarter of a century.

The claim was filed in November in a UK High Court dealing with commercial issues by Libyan Foreign Bank, a unit of the Central Bank of Libya known as LFB, over loans taken out against a 2001 credit facility that Zimbabwe has allegedly failed to honor, court documents show.

Justice Richard Jacobs has given the Zimbabwean defendants until the end of this month to file a defense.

The country has been locked out of international capital markets because of at least $21 billion in unpaid debt, with arrears to the World Bank and other multilateral lenders accumulating over the last 26 years.

It’s also in dispute with a number of private creditors.

Bloomberg