Court of Cassation, No. 14-18.706

Cassation Court First Civil Chamber 24 June 2015,14-18.706

GULF LEADERS (Saudi company)

vs.

CREDIT FONCIER DE FRANCE (CFF)

THE FIRST Civil CHAMBER OF THE CASSATION, COURT delivered the following judgment:

On the sole ground, annexed hereafter:

Whereas according to the judgment under appeal (Paris, 4 March 2014), a loan contract for the partial financing of a hospital in Saudi Arabia was concluded between the French company Crédit Foncier de France (CFF) and the Saudi company Gulf Leaders for Management and Services holding (Gulf Leaders) a dispute having arisen between the parties, CFF filed a request for arbitration according to the arbitration clause stipulated in the contract; an award, rendered in Paris on 31 July 2012, declared the request for nullity of the contract unfounded and ordered Gulf Leaders to reimburse a certain amount to the French company.

Whereas Gulf Leaders complains that the judgment dismissed its action for annulment.

Whereas the judgment notes that the arbitral tribunal held that the intervention of Mr. X, manager of the Riveroca company, was not concealed, since he was present alongside the company CFF during the contractual negotiations and was justified by its financial experience of operations in Saudi Arabia, which the French company did not have, that the director of the group to which the company CFF belonged had stated under oath that the confidentiel report drawn up by the group’s Inspectorate General contained no evidence to support a suspicion of corruption, and that the similarity between the commission paid by the company Riveroca and the amount invoiced to Gulf Leaders, as underwriting fees, corresponding to a banking practice, did not establish that the sums paid under the contract had been used to remunerate the intermediary; that in the light of these findings, the Court of Appeal, which considered, without being required to respond in detail to the parties' arguments and without any distortion, that the sentence did not give effet to a contract obtained by corruption, legally justified its decision under Article 1520-5, of the Civil Code Procedure; that the ground which, in its first and fifth branches, criticizes the overabundant grounds of the judgment, cannot be accepted.

FOR THESE REASONS

REJECTS the appeal

Orders Gulf Leaders for Management and Services Holding to pay the costs.

Given Article 700 of the Code of Civil Procedure, rejects her request and orders her to pay the company

Crédit Foncier de France the sum of 3,000 euros.

Thus done and judged by the Court of Cassation, First Civil Chamber, and pronounced by the president in its public hearing of the twenty-fourth of June two thousand and fifteen.