- A 2015 Audit Bureau report reveals the scale of court judgments against the Libyan state, from a $936 million Al Kharafi arbitration award to systemic gaps in contract management — with no unified system yet in place to show whether the caseload has grown since.
A report by the Libyan Audit Bureau, covering the year 2015, lays bare the scale of lawsuits and judgments that left the Libyan state carrying significant financial liabilities, both domestically and abroad, alongside pointed observations about how these cases were managed, contracted and settled.
More than a decade on, it remains unclear whether the state's litigation exposure has grown or shrunk since. One of the report's own findings was the absence of a unified system to track lawsuits against the state — and as of now, in 2026, no such system has been established to provide an updated count. The figures below therefore remain the most recent comprehensive accounting publicly available, rather than a current snapshot.
According to the 2015 report, the number of lawsuits filed against the Libyan state before domestic courts reached approximately 60,319 by the end of that year, of which 17,592 were filed during 2015 itself, with 42,727 cases carried over from previous years. The report recorded 5,880 rulings against the state, against 6,109 rulings in its favour, alongside 38,778 cases still in progress and 8,729 cases archived.
The state's exposure extends beyond domestic litigation. The Audit Bureau identified 30 international disputes against Libya, with claims totalling approximately $504 million and €571 million, spanning infrastructure and construction contracts, investment disputes, and supply and service agreements.
Over 10,000 rulings carrying financial obligations
The report found that the Government Litigation Authority issued approximately 10,023 enforcement notices between 2010 and 2015 for rulings that imposed financial obligations on the state.
Between 2010 and 2013 alone, 4,321 rulings were enforced, with a combined value of 857.18 million dinars.
A further 2,352 rulings remained pending enforcement, referred to the Ministry of Finance's budget department, with a combined value of 325.88 million dinars and $133.13 million — some carrying interest rates of up to 7.5 per cent.
Al Kharafi: the largest figure
Among the most significant cases covered in the report is the dispute involving Kuwait's Al Kharafi Group, in which an arbitration ruling awarded the company approximately $936 million, with annual interest of 4 per cent accruing from the date of the ruling until payment.
The report notes that interest alone was adding approximately $37.45 million a year to the liability, on top of legal fees and the costs of asset-seizure proceedings targeting Libyan assets abroad. Notably, this case has continued to develop since 2015 — Al Kharafi has more recently pursued seizure of National Oil Corporation assets in France over related claims, suggesting the underlying dispute remains active even where the Audit Bureau's 2015 figures stop.
The report also covers the case of Belgium's Sustainable Development Foundation, in which a ruling in the organisation's favour reached €38.48 million, following a series of judgments and proceedings linked to the termination of a desertification-control agreement.
Other disputes documented by the Audit Bureau include cases involving the Libyan-Brazilian Construction and Reconstruction Company, the Libyan-German Brick Manufacturing Company, Cyprus-based dairy firm Ola Holdings, Brazil's Odebrecht, and other companies.
Contracts and settlements that raised concerns
The report devotes part of its findings to settlement agreements concluded with foreign companies, including the case of Switzerland's Intersema.
According to the report, an initial ruling of 6.25 million dinars was issued, before the value rose with accrued interest, after which a settlement was reached for 45 million Swiss francs.
The Audit Bureau found that the company received a total of approximately 40.41 million Swiss francs between 2010 and 2015, and assessed that the final settlement agreement had, by its calculation, cost the state an additional 68.57 million Swiss francs. The report also raised the possibility of "corruption and collusion" in its account of the case.
Why the litigation bill has swollen
The Audit Bureau links the rising volume of cases to a cluster of problems, chief among them weak case follow-up, missed appeal deadlines, poor contract management, failure to involve the Government Litigation Authority in some files, the absence of unified databases, and contracts concluded without full adherence to applicable legislation and regulations.
The report also pointed to instances it described as collusion by Libyan parties with opposing litigants to secure gains at the state's expense — observations contained within the Audit Bureau's report rather than general judicial findings applicable to all cases.
Recommendations
The Audit Bureau recommended establishing a unified system for documenting lawsuits against the state, and electronically linking the Ministry of Finance, the Government Litigation Authority and the Audit Bureau itself, alongside strengthening specialised legal staff in commercial law, international law and arbitration.
It also recommended subjecting agreements concluded with foreign companies to legal review, and forming joint defence teams for cases requiring specialised technical expertise. More than ten years later, it remains unclear how many of these recommendations have been implemented, or how large the state's current litigation exposure has grown.