-Caretaker Energy and Water Minister Walid Fayad confirmed to L'Orient-Le Jour that Electricité du Liban (EDL)'s electricity provision will increase by 60 percent this summer. The caretaker minister had previously indicated that priority for benefitting from the increased supply would be given to subscribers in regions with the highest bill collection rates.

Fayad referred to a tender launched on June 10 for the purchase of some 30,000 tons of fuel oil, destined for the Zahrani and Deir Ammar thermal power plants (southern Lebanon), the only two sites of this type currently active in Lebanon, with both Zouk (Kesrouan) and Jiyyeh (Chouf) shut down. Fayad had recently announced on MTV news channel that the power supply would increase in the near future.

-The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) accused HSBC's Swiss branch of failing to prevent money laundering involving two unnamed politically exposed persons. While the personalities involved have not been named by FINMA, the case is linked to investigations into transfers made by former BDL governor Riad Salame, according to a Lebanese magistrate.

As a result, FINMA has imposed measures against the bank, including prohibiting opening new business relationships with politically exposed persons until their full implementation. A similar procedure was once initiated in December 2021, during which the bank cooperated, according to FINMA.

FINMA identified numerous insufficiently documented transactions made between 2002 and 2015, totaling over $300 million. The funds were transferred from a state institution in Lebanon to Switzerland, and generally returned shortly afterward to other accounts in Lebanon.

-Business activity in Lebanon continued to decline in the first quarter of 2024, marked by the continuation of the socio-economic crisis that erupted in 2019 and the explosive situation in the south of the country in the wake of Israel’s war on Gaza. The downward trend was revealed in the latest results of the index developed by the Beirut Merchants Association and Fransabank.

The value of the index fell from 56.09 points at the end of 2023 to 42.84 points three months later, a drop of 13.25 points. However, it remains well above its worst level since 2019, at 16.93 points, at the end of Q1 2023.

-The price of gasoline decreased slightly while the cost of diesel, gas cylinders and fuel oil for private generators increased, according to the latest price list published by the Energy and Water Ministry. Here are the new rates:

Analysis of the week

Public Prosecutor at the Mount Lebanon Court of Appeal Ghada Aoun has managed financial documents potentially worth tens of billions of dollars since the crisis began in 2019, according to records reviewed by L’Orient-Le Jour. These documents are central to an ongoing legal dispute between Aoun and her superiors. Recently, the public prosecutor at the Court of Cassation, Jamal Hajjar, ordered the judicial police to withhold these files from Aoun, reversing his earlier directive to disclose them, on June 7. Read Mounir Younes’ article:
https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1417925/billions-in-question-ghada-aouns-high-stakes-legal-battles.html