An A220-300 operated by Air Tanzania (ATCL) remains attached in The Netherlands over a land rights dispute between Tanzania and two Swedish investors.

This comes after Swedish companies EcoDevelopment in Europe AB and EcoEnergy Africa AB - which on April 13, 2022, were awarded a USD165 million award against Tanzania over a revoked land rights claim - on November 8, 2022, persuaded the District Court of Limburg in Maastricht to uphold the attachment of 5H-TCH (msn 55047) owned by Tanzania's state-owned TGF - Tanzania Government Flight (Dar es Salaam).

According to the court docket, the Tanzanian aircraft has been grounded in Maastricht since January 2022, reportedly due to engine problems. On June 16, 2022, it was seized by order of a provisional relief judge of the District Court of Limburg.

Tanzania argued the attachment was unlawful because, on June 15, 2022, the state applied to the Tribunal of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) to annul EcoDevelopment's award. Tanzania also filed a request to the ICSID Tribunal to continue the stay of enforcement of the award. ICSID registered the request on June 21, 2022. On the same day, it provisionally stayed the enforcement of the award pending a decision by an ad hoc committee. The Swedish claimants filed their objections on August 16, 2022.

On November 1, 2022, the ad hoc ICSID committee issued a decision on their objections, followed by the Dutch court's decision on November 8 that ICSID's provisional stay of enforcement of the award only took effect on the date that the institution registered the state's annulment request, which was on June 21, 2022. The Dutch court also found no grounds for lifting the aircraft's attachment.

EcoDevelopment first brought a claim to the ICSID on August 25, 2017, under a Sweden-Tanzania bilateral investment treaty (BIT) entered into on March 1, 2002. They claimed that the Tanzanian state had violated the BIT by unlawfully expropriating their land title at Bagamoyo. The Swedish companies invested USD52 million over more than a decade to develop the Bagamoyo project for the local production of sugar, renewable electricity, and fuel.

The same A220-300 was seized in Johannesburg O.R. Tambo, South Africa on August 23, 2019, in a then unsuccessful attempt by an elderly Namibian farmer, Hermanus Steyn, for compensation owed to him by the Tanzanian government after it had expropriated his farm in 1982. Steyn had an outstanding claim of USD16 million, which, with interest, totalled USD33 million.

In December 2019, Tanzania secured the release of one of its DHC-8-Q400s, 5H-TCF (msn 4608), after Steyn had it attached too by a Canadian court in pursuit of his compensation.

The state-owned airline also faced legal action in a London High Court in February 2020 when it was fined more than USD30 million for outstanding lease payments of an A320-200, 5H-MWH (msn 630), from Liberian company Wallis Trading.

In 2018, another Dash 8-400, 5H-TCE (msn 4559), was seized by Stirling Civil Engineering following the Tanzanian government's unwillingness to settle a USD38.7 million debt awarded to the Canadian contractor by the International Court of Arbitration in 2010. The case pertained to a cancelled USD25 million civil engineering contract. The turboprop was eventually released after reaching a settlement.

All of ATCL's aircraft are owned and leased from TGF, but the government now wants to shift ownership to the airline, arguing this would reduce costs for both state entities. Still, industry observers say this would have little benefit as both bodies are state-owned and therefore subject to future international claims against the Tanzanian government.