Equatorial Guinea has lodged a case against France at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to halt the sale of a luxury mansion in Paris that the West African nation says it wants to reclaim, the court announced on Friday.
The dispute stems from the 2017 conviction in France of Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, the son of Equatorial Guinea’s president, for money laundering and embezzling millions in public funds. Nguema was handed a three-year suspended prison sentence and fined €30 million by a Paris court, which also ordered the seizure of his assets in France — among them a lavish mansion on Avenue Foch valued at tens of millions of euros. That conviction was upheld by an appeals court in 2020, reports Anadolu.
In a statement, the ICJ confirmed that Equatorial Guinea filed its lawsuit on Thursday, arguing its claim on the basis of the UN Convention against Corruption, adopted on 31 October 2003.
According to the application, Equatorial Guinea requested France to guarantee, no later than 27 June 2025, that it would not cause “irreparable prejudice . . . or to further aggravate the dispute or make it more difficult to resolve.” However, Equatorial Guinea says France failed to provide such assurances and fears that France could proceed with the sale of the building before the court rules on the merits of the case.
Equatorial Guinea has asked the ICJ to direct France to take all necessary measures to prevent the sale of the building, grant the country full and unhindered access to the entire property, and refrain from any action that could aggravate or extend the dispute.
The statement also noted that on 18 June 2025, officers of the French judicial police entered the building without prior notice to its occupants and changed the locks on several doors.
The ICJ is expected to schedule hearings on provisional measures in the coming weeks.
