Riyadh - Mubasher: The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), affiliated with the World Bank, has rejected a request to review the decision it issued last July, which ordered Morocco to compensate Saudi billionaire Mohammed Al Amoudi with $150 million, following a complaint he filed against the Kingdom regarding the country’s only oil refinery, “Samir”, which he owned.

An informed source stated, according to “Asharq Bloomberg”, that Al-Amoudi and Morocco had both requested a review of the decision, but Al-Amoudi’s requests were not accepted, while one of Morocco’s requests regarding reducing the percentage of calculating the initial compensation was accepted, and as a result the compensation amount will be reduced to slightly less than $150 million.

Al-Amoudi filed the dispute before the center in 2018, demanding compensation of $2.7 billion on behalf of his Swedish company, Coral Petroleum Holding, considering that Morocco had violated the investment protection agreement with his company’s country of investment in the refinery, Sweden.

The Moroccan refinery company, known as Samir, has been in liquidation since 2016 after ceasing operations a year earlier, as a result of its debts accumulating to more than $4 billion to customs and local banks.

The company was first put up for sale in 2017, but despite receiving a number of local and foreign offers, none of them were accepted. The Saudi billionaire bought it from the government in 1997.