The South Cairo Civil Court yesterday resumed proceedings over the lawsuit raised by Edouard Empain, grandson of Baron Empain, who is claiming rights to his grandfather’s property, the Baron’s Palace in Heliopolis, after it fell under the control of Nasser Social Bank.
Lillian el-Khoury, assistant deputy for the Belgian consulate in Egypt, attended the hearing and sat on the front bench to follow the proceedings. Empain is a Belgian citizen.
Empain’s legal team submitted a file containing a pleading memorandum, which had been the cause for postponement of the previous session. They demanded that the court set a date for issuing the verdict, and grant them time to present their pleading.
The lawyer representing the bank objected to the pleading, citing Article 6 of Law 7/1944 (the inheritance law), which restricts the right to inherit in the case of a dispute between parties of different nationalities and different religions. The court decided to suspend the case until the next session, scheduled for 26 January, 2010, and ordered Empain’s lawyers to submit their memorandums within two weeks.
The bank’s lawyer had challenged the court’s jurisdiction during the last session, given the property’s location in Heliopolis. In Tuesday’s session the lawyer asked for a grace period to browse the documents submitted by Empain who, in turn, presented some more papers related to the pleading, and asked for postponement to add more documents.
Edouard Empain, an 88-year-old French speaker, traveled from France to Cairo in October. He claims to be the sole legitimate heir to the property. He said that he inherited the property from his father, who inherited it from his grandfather. Empain presented a passport carrying his name to prove his right to the property.
Baron Empain came to Egypt from India just after the inauguration of the Suez Canal, and concluded the construction of his palace in 1911. The palace designer, Alexander Marcel, a French architect, had displayed its design in an exhibition in Paris. It had appealed to the Baron, who liked the combination of both European and Indian architecture. He had the palace built using Italian marble and Czechoslovakian crystal.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
