Managing Director at Alvarez & Marsal Met Wazni, to Meet Aoun

Managing Director at Alvarez and Marsal, James Daniell, will reportedly hold a meeting with President Michel Aoun after holding talks with caretaker Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni over the company’s “halted” forensic audit into the central bank accounts, LBCI TV station reported on Wednesday.

LBCI said the Aoun-Daniell meeting is expected on Thursday at 10:15 a.m. at Baabda Presidential Palace.

Daniell met with Wazni for two hours on Wednesday and reportedly discussed with him a contract signed between the company and the Lebanese state to run a forensic audit into Lebanon’s central bank accounts.

The New York based Alvarez believes the central bank has handed over less than half of the documents required to proceed with the audit.

In September, Alvarez and Marsal started a forensic audit of the Bank of Lebanon as part of measures towards reforms to lift the country out of its worst economic crisis in decades.

It set November 3 as a deadline for the bank to provide it with all information needed for the review, a source at the finance ministry said.

But the central bank has handed over less than half of the documents required to proceed with the audit bringing the audit to a halt.

It says provisions of the Code of Money and Credit and the Banking Secrecy Law bar it from releasing the rest.