* Admissibility date reflects the date the case was officially registered. All other dates pertain to the date in which a stage was completed.
Case Description
In 2006, the European Investment Bank (EIB) entered into a subscription commitment to invest alongside other investors in the Emerging Capital Partners (ECP) Africa Fund II, a private equity fund seeking to support private African companies. In 2006 and 2007, ECP Africa, one of ECP’s investment vehicles, provided a loan of USD 15m to Spencon, an East African engineering and construction company focusing on public works and infrastructure projects in Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique.
On 10 November 2021, the EIB Group Complaints Mechanism (EIB-CM) received a complaint concerning an EIB fraud investigation conducted in relation to ECP/Spencon. The complainants claim that between November 2017 and November 2020, the EIB competent service failed to respond to five correspondence seeking information about the status of the EIB’s ECP/Spencon fraud investigation and its findings. For the complainants, the lack of response results in non-compliance with the EIB Group Transparency Policy. Further, they claim that the EIB competent service should have provided its outcome to the complainants concurrently with that of other relevant stakeholders.
Prior to this complaint, the EIB-CM received two complaints (SG/F/2020/05 and SG/G/2021/02) which share overlapping allegations.
When looking into similar issues of failure to respond to requests for information in the context of cases SG/F/2020/05 and SG/G/2021/02, the EIB-CM determined that, specific to the complainants’ correspondence of 19 November 2017, 30 November 2018 and 10 June 2020, “[t]he EIB service handling investigation work did not respond to two emails sent by the complainants enquiring about the status of their case as required.” However, the EIB competent service noted it had exchanged a total of 86 emails with the complainants over the course of the investigation. In the context of cases SG/F/2020/05 and SG/G/2021/02, the EIB-CM issued a recommendation that has, in the meantime, been implemented.
As regards the complainants’ correspondence of 22 October 2020 and 23 November 2020, the EIB did not respond to the former. Despite providing a response to the correspondence of 23 November 2020, the complainants’ request for a ‘comprehensive response of the EIB’s findings’ was partially responded to without providing the reason(s) why such information could not be fully divulged.
The EIB-CM looked into a similar allegation within the context of the complaint SG/G/2021/02 in which the EIB-CM issued a recommendation. As a result, the EIB-CM was informed by the EIB services that on 9 November 2022, the EIB services provided the complainant with further information regarding the closure of the EIB fraud investigation at issue. The EIB-CM considers that this information provides the complainant with a ‘comprehensive response’ of the EIB’s findings’ and fulfils the recommendation.
Considering the above, the EIB-CM takes note that the raised allegations had been addressed/solved during the complaint-handling. Therefore, the EIB-CM proceeded to the closure of the case.