All investigations against Swiss-based Quantum Global Group have been closed by the country’s attorney general’s (AG) office – with no wrongdoing found to have taken place.
The group, comprised of various fund management firms, primarily focuses on investments in Africa. Quantum managed assets for Angola’s wealth fund – but the country and company have been involved in a legal dispute for the last year.
In March, Angola stated that its sovereign wealth fund had recovered $3.35 billion (€3 billion) of assets managed by Quantum Global Investment Management, when a case of alleged corruption and conflict of interest at the state-run investor were at their peak.
The wealth fund’s assets included around $2.35 billion of assets in UK and Mauritius banks, and $1 billion of real estate holdings in hotels, gold mines, farms, and resorts in the country and abroad, as reported by Bloomberg.
Charges were brought against an unnamed individual at Quantum over suspicion of money laundering linked to possible offences against assets held by the Angolan National Bank and sovereign wealth fund (Fondo Soberano de Angola) – they have since been dropped.
Following the Swiss AG’s termination of all investigation, Quantum’s founder Swiss-Angolan Jean-Claude Bastos has taken a “further step towards his complete rehabilitation” against what the company called false and unsubstantiated allegations.
Bastos was released from custody in Angola at the end of March, after Angolan authorities dropped all charges against him and confirmed that no charges would be brought against him or his related companies, according to the firm. The Angolan attorney general has since confirmed this in writing to authorities in Mauritius and Switzerland’s AG office.
The closing of the case follows the conclusion of various legal proceedings in both Switzerland and the High Court in England.
“In these proceedings the English High Court clarified that the activities of Quantum Global Group and Mr Bastos were executed in accordance with commercially valid and legally binding contracts,” a spokesperson for Quantum said.
©2019 funds europe
