By Christophe TRICHEUR, CEO of RIMCOM.
The Mauritanian justice system has ruled, the French Council of State has granted exequatur, but the execution remains blocked. The RIMCOM case now raises a question of international credibility for Mauritania.
There are judicial victories that are not to be celebrated: they are to be enforced. The RIM Communication (RIMCOM) case has now entered a phase where inaction is no longer just administrative slowness, but a political decision.
The facts are established and their sequence speaks for itself. In 2013, a public service delegation contract is signed with the Urban Community of Nouakchott. In August 2014, it is unilaterally terminated. RIMCOM chooses the path of law. And the law responds: Administrative Tribunal (2015), Court of Appeal (2018), Supreme Court (February 2020), High Council of Fatwa and Graceful Appeals. Four levels, one same verdict: abusive termination, definitive condemnation to 664,959,738 MRU (approximately 16.6 million euros).
Due to lack of internal execution, the company seeks justice in France based on the 1962 Franco-Mauritanian judicial cooperation treaty. On October 10, 2025, the French Council of State (decision n° 493788) grants exequatur: Mauritanian decisions become enforceable in France.
This is no longer a local dispute: it is an international obligation.
From now on, the only question that matters is: what does the Mauritanian State do when it is condemned by its own judges, confirmed by its own institutions, and then recognized abroad?
The false refuge of maneuvers
One hears, here and there, the idea of an “action in the interest of the law,” as if a procedural detour could create an escape route.
It is a mirage. In Mauritanian law, this recourse has only a doctrinal scope: it is exclusively aimed at future jurisprudence. It does not affect the acquired rights of the parties, nor the authority of the res judicata, does not suspend the execution, and does not erase the debt in any way.
But above all, the timing to evoke it is revealing. Initiated today, this recourse would come eight years after the final judgment, six years after the Supreme Court ruling, and five months after the decision of the French Council of State granting exequatur. Such timing excludes any credible legal interpretation: it does not respond to an institutional necessity, nor to a requirement of legal coherence.
In any case, no internal recourse, even if symbolic, can hinder the execution of a decision now consecrated in the international legal order by a sovereign foreign court, based on the rules of judicial cooperation.
Exequatur is not a medal: it is a lever
An enforceable title is not a symbol. It is the very concrete possibility of conservatory measures and seizures on assets not covered by diplomatic immunity: bank accounts, commercial debts, movable property.
African states have experienced this: these episodes are never resolved in silence. They become part of the media, the reports of rating agencies, in the memory of investors. The reputational cost of a seizure in Paris far exceeds the amount of the debt itself.
This is the paradox that the Mauritanian State must measure in its full dimension: Mauritanian justice has just been validated at the highest European level, while the administration delays in turning this verdict into action. This discrepancy is precisely what international partners are observing.
Paying is not capitulating
Executing a judgment does not humiliate the State: it defines it.
“A State is strong not when it always wins, but when it respects the rule, even when it condemns it.”
This case is all the more clear as the High Council of Fatwa and Graceful Appeals has confirmed the validity of the claim, and a presidential instruction has requested its execution.
The problem is not ignorance: it is slowness. And at this level of national and international recognition, slowness eventually looks like a choice.
The moment of truth
The RIMCOM case no longer tests justice: it has already passed through all the levels of the law. It tests the Mauritanian State: does it want its judicial decisions to be texts… or facts?
Credibility is not announced. It is executed. There is no more precious capital than trust in the strength of the law, the one that the President of the Republic has placed at the heart of his governance project.
About Christophe TRICHEUR
Christophe TRICHEUR is Shareholder/Founder of RIM Communication (RIMCOM), a Mauritanian company specialized in communication. An active economic player in West Africa, he, along with all Mauritanian and foreign shareholders, has been fighting a major legal battle for over ten years for the recognition of their company’s rights, which led to a historic exequatur decision before the French Council of State in October 2025.
