LONDON (Dow Jones) ? A UK lawsuit filed against the Republic of the Congo is increasingly focusing on the role of crude oil traders Vitol Holding B.V. and Trafigura Beheer B.V. in a complex financial system that may have helped the country escape its creditors, transcripts of court hearings show.

Kensington International Ltd., a Caymans Islands company and an affiliate of Elliott Associates, a $6.5 billion New York City hedge fund, is suing to recover debt owed it by the Congo. It holds more than $100 million in Congolese sovereign debt.

Under a November, 2005 court judgment, Kensington has tried to recover the debt by confiscating Congolese oil cargoes being sold by two special-purpose vehicles, Sphynx Bermuda and Africa Oil and Gas Corp., or AOGC, which were identified as conduits for Congolese crude sales.

However, state-owned Congolese National Oil Co., or SNPC, may have found a way to get around this by using new channels to sell to oil traders, according to court testimony Sept. 12 and 13 by Ikechukwu Nwobodo, a consultant for SNPC in charge of crude marketing.

According to the court transcripts, the oil traders Trafigura and Vitol were asked to redirect their purchases of Congolese oil cargoes to a previously unknown company, Phenicia, which Nwobodo said is headed by SNPC?s president, Denis Gokana. It isn?t clear, however, who owns the company.

Sphynx Bermuda and AOGC, which were also Gokana-managed companies, previously handled the Congo?s crude sales, according to earlier court records.

In an email to the World Bank, Sarah Wykes, a coordinator at non-governmental organisation Global Witness, said the aim of structures such as Phenicia, AOGC and Sphynx ?is obviously the avoidance of attachment of assets by creditors?.

?But the expensive and inherently untransparent nature of the deals not only raises the question of what value the Congolese Treasury is deriving from this ongoing marketing policy but also to what extent misappropriation of public revenues is occurring,? she said.

Asked by Ewan McQuater, a lawyer representing Kensington, if ?the purpose of using Phenicia is because it was clear of the problems that now affected AOGC and Sphynx,? Nwobodo replied: ?I would say so. I would think so, yes.

?Because of the risks involved, you know, all the traders buying were then told of Phenicia,? he said, citing Vitol and Trafigura as having agreed to buy oil from the new entity. Cargoes bought through Phenicia were sent to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast or to Taiwan.

The court transcripts also show that traders sought to take extra precautions in their crude transactions. ?I would like to reiterate that the bill of lading documents SHOULD NOT have any mention of Trafigura Limited or Trafigura BV,? a Trafigura manager said of one of the cargoes in an email quoted in court. (The emphasis was the author?s.)

One cargo was sold to a British Virgins Islands-registered trader called Quantic Ltd. BVI, headed by Lebanese national Samy Maroun, according to the transcripts. The company later sold the oil to Trafigura, the documents show.

Gokana and SNPC couldn?t be reached for comment. Vitol, Quantic and Trafigura didn?t return requests for comment. Nwobodo didn?t return a call placed through his law firm.

Vitol switched some of its Congolese trades from its Swiss-based Vitol SA to its Bahraini unit.

At a court hearing in May, it was alleged that Vitol was buying oil from the Congo through Global Oil Trader Mauritius, a company it controls.

A person familiar with the lawsuit said the UK action hasn?t yet been expanded to include Vitol or Trafigura. A spokesman for Kensington declined to comment.