Dos Santos loses appeal against global freezing order

Africa's first female billionaire, whose father Jose Eduardo dos Santos ruled Angola for 38 years until 2017, is being sued by Angolan telecoms operator Unitel. Unitel was granted a worldwide freezing order over Dos Santos' assets in December and the Court of Appeal yesterday rejected her appeal against that decision, according to a Reuters report on the MarketScreener site. Dos Santos has faced corruption accusations in Angola for years. She has denied the allegations, saying she is the target of a long-running political vendetta. She is being sued by Unitel over loans it made to separate Dutch company Unitel International Holdings (UIH) in 2012 and 2013, when she was a Unitel director, to fund UIH's acquisition of shares in telecoms companies. Dos Santos owns and controls UIH, the Court of Appeal said in its ruling. Unitel and UIH are not related despite bearing the same name, and Dos Santos resigned as a director of Unitel in 2020. The loans were not repaid and around 300m pounds is outstanding, Unitel's lawyers argued at the High Court.