CABEI filed a lawsuit against ex-president Dante Mossi, accusing him of breach of contract and abusing his office to benefit himself after leaving.
The Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) sued its former president, alleging that he used his position to set himself up to profit after leaving the bank and also has attempted to extort the institution.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court in D.C. on Thursday, the Honduras-based institution claims that Dante Mossi, who led the bank from 2018 to 2023, sought to negatively influence credit rating agencies’ decisions on CABEI after it became clear that he would not have a second term as president.
It also alleges that the bank during Mossi’s tenure sponsored an electric-vehicle conference in D.C. and he used the event to build a relationship with an EV company and helped it win business in Latin America. After leaving office, Mossi started a business to import vehicles to Honduras from the same company. But Mossi said that the idea for his new company did not come to him until months after leaving his position at CABEI.
Mossi called the allegations in the bank’s lawsuit preposterous and retaliatory. Since leaving office, Mossi has sharply criticized the bank’s new management and recently sued the bank in the Central American Court of Justice in Managua, Nicaragua, for more than $2.4 million for lost wages he said resulted from reputational harm.
“It really looks like some kind of retaliation for my lawsuit,” Mossi said. “This is obviously an effort to make me spend money on a law firm in Washington, D.C.”
The bank alleges in its complaint that Mossi’s lawsuit was part of an extortion scheme that involved a campaign on social media to embarrass the bank.
“Mossi’s message is clear,” the bank’s lawsuit said. “His attacks against the Bank will not stop until the Bank pays him a large and unearned settlement.”
CABEI was founded by five Central American countries in 1960 to promote economic integration in the largely impoverished region. Much of its capital comes from democratic countries outside the region, including Taiwan, South Korea and the United States. The bank has come under scrutiny in recent years for its loans to authoritarian countries including Nicaragua and El Salvador.
An August investigation by The Washington Post spotlighted CABEI loans to Nicaragua during a period of international isolation after rights groups documented widespread torture, rape and killings there beginning in 2018. The funding included loans to the country’s national police, who were the primary perpetrators of the abuse.
Mossi began his tenure at the bank in December 2018. It was months into the police crackdown on protesters of the government, but the loans to the police continued flowing until 2020, according to the bank. Between 2018 and 2022, CABEI lent $2.65 billion to Nicaragua, mostly for infrastructure and environmental projects.
Following criticism of Mossi’s management of the bank, the board declined to renew his tenure. His successor, Gisela Sánchez Maroto, has said the bank is implementing new anti-corruption and human rights policies while reviewing all loans approved over the last decade.
Mossi defended his work at CABEI and noted that the bank has an initiative approved by the board — and still promoted by the bank — to work on sustainability. He said that as president, he had led an initiative to bring more transparency to the bank, helped bring in South Korea as an extra-regional member, and bolstered the bank’s credit rating.
“I really wanted to make a difference at CABEI, and I think I did,” Mossi said.
Though both CABEI and Mossi are based in Honduras, the bank filed in Washington, pointing to Mossi’s ownership of an apartment in D.C. and CABEI’s sponsorship of the EV conference there. The bank’s complaint cited violations of the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, breach of fiduciary duty, market manipulation, tortious interference and breach of contract. It did not specify how much money it was seeking in damages. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2024/09/06/cabei-development-bank-mossi-lawsuit/#:~:text=The%20Central%20American%20Bank%20for%20Economic)
