Libyan Court rules in favor of Mohsen Derregia’s return as LIA Chairman

A Libyan judiciary ruling was made in favor of the return of Mohsen Derregia to his previous post as Chairman of the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), saying all previous appointments following Derregia’s tenure were void.

A well-informed source from LIA said after the return of Derregia from Britain, where he was a university professor in economics and finance, to chair the sovereign fund; he was sacked by the then-prime-minister Ali Zidan after only nine months of work. The source said the dismissal wasn’t backed by any reasons, knowing that at the nine months, LIA made 1770 million dollars in profit.

A legal expert told Ean Libya that the Chairman of LIA should remain in office for at least a three-year term and Derregia was sacked arbitrarily, so the court ruled in his favor.

The legal expert added that the employees of LIA are public sector employees and cannot be sacked without law-based justification, which wasn’t present in Derregia’s case, so the Court of Administrative Appeal annulled the decision to sack him after the Supreme Court laid out the legal framework of the lawsuit in 2019 and sent it to the Administrative Appeal Court.

The legal expert said this compels the Libyan Government of National Unity to return Derregia to his post as LIA Chairman.

The source also indicated that the Court had notified the Government of National Unity of the ruling in favor of Derregia, saying that abstaining from implementing the ruling “is a crime”, referring to Prime Minister Abdul-Hamid Dbeibah’s statement that said: “Abiding by and implementing court rulings and laws is a must.”