The legal dispute between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and PayServices now focuses on whether memorandums of understanding signed in early 2024 are legally binding. The agreements were signed between the U.S. company and several ministerial departments and public entities as part of a project to digitize public services.
PayServices maintains that these documents amount to contracts. On Jan. 8, the company filed a lawsuit in Idaho, where it is based, alleging a breach of the agreements and seeking $4 billion in damages. Africa Intelligence reported the case in an article published Jan. 13.
According to the outlet, the company claims the state was required to pay it $20 million by the end of March 2024, but that the payment was halted. Africa Intelligence also reports that PayServices estimates it has invested more than $90 million with no return. This includes $72 million for deploying its technology in the systems of the Caisse Générale d'Épargne du Congo (Cadeco), a public financial institution.
Preliminary documents
DRC authorities reacted to the publication. In a statement released Jan. 14, the Ministry of Finance said that the protocols and memorandums of understanding signed with PayServices were preliminary and non-binding. For the offices of Doudou Fwamba, these instruments did not create any financial obligation for the public treasury. The ministry emphasized that no financial transaction, no state equity participation, and no budgetary commitment was validly agreed.
Following due diligence carried out by the Ministry of Finance after a $20 million payment request, the ministry concluded that it could not legally proceed with the payment. The statement added that this conclusion was supported by decisions from several U.S. authorities prohibiting PayServices from holding itself out as a bank or engaging in banking activities.
The Ministry of Portfolio adopted a similar stance in a statement published the same day as the article. It stated that PayServices never had the legal status of a banking institution under U.S. law and accused it of creating a misleading appearance of regulation and solvency.
Corruption allegations
For that administration, the claims of a $72 million investment lack any legal, budgetary, or accounting basis and do not correspond to any actual commitment or disbursement by PayServices. It referred to a fraudulent scheme intended to obtain improper access to sovereign state resources. It further stated that internal checks found PayServices was neither authorized nor empowered to receive or manage public funds.
In its complaint, the U.S. company maintains that the project was sabotaged because it refused to comply with bribe requests made by several officials involved in the case. The Ministry of Finance replied that the Congolese government formally and categorically denies this allegation.
Several lawyers consulted said that a memorandum of understanding can indeed be legally binding. One lawyer argued that in civil law, it is the commitment made by the parties that matters, not the name of the document. According to them, only an analysis of the documents will allow for a determination. However, this analysis remains difficult at this stage as the protocols are not public, making it impossible to precisely verify the relevance of the arguments raised by each party.
Pierre Mukoko
