CAIRO — While the Nile River comes nowhere close to Morocco, the country still may be playing a role in the crisis over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam because of Rabat's legal and financial tangle with an Ethiopian-born man who has been one of the most prominent investors in the project.

In 2015, Morocco began seizing the assets of Saudi-Ethiopian billionaire Mohammed al-Amoudi, who had monopolized oil refining in Morocco through SAMIR, the only refinery there. Most of the shares of SAMIR, which was founded by the Moroccan government in 1959, were sold to Amoudi's Corral group in the 1990s.

In November 2018, the Moroccan judiciary ruled that Amoudi properties should be confiscated; the courts accused him of intentionally disrupting oil production in Morocco as a bargaining tool against the state in order to reduce accumulated taxes and custom dues and to reduce the interest due on loans he obtained from banks in Morocco.

Morocco also was one of 21 Arab League states that signed a March 4 resolution rejecting infringement of Egypt’s historical rights to the waters of the Nile.