A Zambian court has ordered the liquidation of a company owned by Israeli diamond billionaire Lev Leviev as the fight with his local partner in an emerald mine rages on.
The Zambian High Court placed Frango Finance Ltd., which owns half of Gemcanton Investments Holdings, in compulsory liquidation after receiving a petition on Feb. 18, according to a statement published in the Daily Nation newspaper.
Leviev will contest the order, said his lawyer, Dickson Jere.
“We have been served with an order which was issued without hearing my client,” he said in a text message. “We will be going to challenge it in court as Frango is not even a Zambian-registered company.”
Leviev and Abdoulaye Ndiaye became embroiled in legal battles soon after the diamond magnate bought half of what was previously known as the Grizzly emerald mine from Ndiaye in Zambia’s Copperbelt province in 2015/Bloomberg.
