The French magazine Jeune Afrique revealed that former communications adviser Sami Jelouli has been trying for ten years to recover 20 million Swiss francs from Tripoli through French courts, which rejected his claims. In Switzerland, however, the courts were more lenient, granting the Tunisian adviser a seizure order on a Libyan-owned building in Cologny.
According to the magazine, in 2017 Sami Jelouli obtained an arbitration ruling obliging the Libyan state to pay CHF 20.4 million. The decision was based on an agreement between Tripoli and his company, Jelouli Group Communications (Easy Media), which provided “communications and event management” services to the Gaddafi family.
The report added that encouraged by this ruling, Jelouli quickly won his case in France. In 2018, the Paris Court of Appeal upheld the arbitration award, and three years later he was authorized to seize shares worth €19 million owned by the National Oil Corporation in Mabruk Oil Operations, according to the magazine.
