...The ruling comes after more than a decade of litigation initiated by two French anti-corruption organizations...It was the first of the three cases [brought against high-level government officials of different countries for allegedly laundering “ill-gotten gains” in France] to reach a verdict and the first time a French court recognized non-governmental organizations’ standing to file a criminal corruption complaint.

...Teodorin has been the subject of a number of international money-laundering investigations...The huge amount of money looted by members of Equatorial Guinea’s ruling elite contributes to the country’s severe underfunding of health and education.

.... France has no laws providing for the repatriation of recovered assets, but Human Rights Watch and other organizations are urging the government to ensure that the funds are repatriated to the country to benefit the people who are victims of official corruption.

...The discovery of oil in the early 1990s catapulted Equatorial Guinea from one of the world’s poorest countries to the one with the highest per capita income in Africa. Yet the government has invested only a pittance in health and education and progress on health and education consistently lag behind regional averages. Some indicators, such as vaccination and school enrollment rates, have deteriorated since the start of the oil boom.