High Administrative Court Upholds Ruling On Invalidity of Nasr Steam Boilers Co. Privatization

In a new victory for ECESR facing the selling and privatization of national Egyptian companies, the Appeal Bureau of the High Administrative Court Ruled – For the very first time in a such type of cases – to uphold the previous Ruling of the lower administrative court on the invalidity of the privatization of the selling of the ”Nasr Steam Boilers Co.” in the case filed by ECESR and others, this verdict which is the first to be upheld by the High Court concerning privatization will represent a huge step for the possibility to uphold all the previous rulings in similar cases.

This morning, the first district of the Appeal Bureau of the High Administrative Court ruled with consensus to reject all appeals against the ruling to invalidate the Nasr privatization, four appeals were submitted to over rule the previous verdict :

1. Appeal no. 1976 submitted by ” Chemical Industries Holding Co.”
2. Appeal no.2677 submitted by Prime Minister
3. Appeal no. 2688 submitted by  ” Metal Industries Holding Co.” and
4. Appeal no. 2699 submitted by ” Al-Khould Co. for Tourism & Real estate Development”  against Eng. Adel Qurani Madkour, an employee of the Nasr Co.

The first 3 appeals were submitted by the state, However, the High Court verdict considerations stated that a state of law is required to protect public and private money and property, they should not be wasted or used for any aim but to achieve public interest, thusly, the previous ruling is to be upheld concerning the invalidation of the selling and liquidation of the contested company and all consequent legal and financial actions,the company full return to the state with reestablishing of its facilities and the full reinstating of  its workers with all their previous benefits.

It workers of Al-Nasr Co. were represented by Khaled Ali, Lawyer Of ECESR, AbdelGhaffar Megawori and Wael Hamdy Al-Saeed, who won the previous case before the lower court.

The Company, Al-Nasr Steam Boilers Co., was part of the Egyptian Nuclear programme  and the biggest Middle Eastern company for electricity production, electrical transformers manufacturing and maintenance and desalination plants, when the company was first proposed for privatization, it was with the goal that the the foreign investor ” Babcock & Wilcox Inernational Innvestment Inc.”  is to help in development of the company, but it came as a surprise when the foriegn investor sold his share to the Egyptian investor ” Al-Kholoud Co.”, where the latter disassembled the boilers, and the factory and moved the machines to another factory in 6th of October distrect, where he established ” Al-Kholoud for tourism & Real estate development”, only to sell it again – including the Machines & equipments – to  Orascom tourism Group.