Malta freeze on golden passport businessman for $59 million

A South African fund is requesting US courts to green-light a discovery of evidence from banks, to use in legal proceedings in Malta, Italy and Bermuda on a $59 million arbitration award against Ghanaian businessman John Kodwo Taylor.

Taylor, a Ghanian national, became a Maltese citizen in 2017 and is the sole shareholder and director of Maltese company Kodwo & Sons.

Vantage Mezzanine Fund II Partnership, an investment fund that provides finance to “high-risk businesses”, wants evidence from various American banks, for use in at least three foreign court proceedings.

Vantage wants to recover sufficient assets to satisfy an arbitration award of $59 million entered by the London Court of International Arbitration in December 2022.

The award concerned a personal guarantee that Taylor provided for loans issued by Vantage and a German entity called DEG Deutsche Investitions, to Surfline Communications, a Ghanaian company that develops high-speed internet networks in Ghana, of which Taylor is executive chairperson.

Vantage has since obtained a garnishee order on Taylor’s Malta bank accounts, and a precautionary warrant of seizure on his company shares. Taylor has however not yet been served in Malta, believed to use the island only for his company to act as an investment vehicle. Vantage said it would seek the uncommon course of action to force a judicial sale of the Kodwo company shares. But to value the shares, it is necessary to locate assets such as Kodwo bank accounts and its wire transfers.

Vantage said the respondent banks in the freeze requested on Taylor’s accounts were also likely though unknowingly, involved in wire transfers to or from Taylor’s accounts in Malta, Italy, and Bermuda, and his companies in BVI and Florida. Taylor is billed as a serial entrepreneur with interests in oil and gas, finance, property and telecoms, starting in 1999 with oil trading company Cirrus Energy Services. His tech company Surfline was Ghana’s first 4G LTE network providing wireless broadband services to the public.