PART 3: Who is the Real owner of Sabah (North Borneo)
P1 - The Philippines and Malaysia Territorial Disputes
• Who is the REAL Owner ...
P2 - New Seizure Order for Two (2) Petronas Asset
• Who is the REAL Owner ...
Who OWN SABAH: Malaysia Wins Court Battle Over $15 Billion Sulu Heirs Award in French Court
A Paris court has upheld the Malaysian government’s challenge against enforcing a partial award to the heirs of a former sultan who won $15 billion in an arbitration over a colonial-era land deal, Malaysia said late on Tuesday.
The ruling by the French Court of Appeal, questioned the jurisdiction of Spanish arbitrator Gustavo Stampa, who ordered last year’s eye-watering payout.
The Malaysian government says a new ruling by a French court could overturn a $15 billion arbitration award handed to Filipino heirs of the 19th-century Sulu sultanate.
A French arbitration court in February last year, ordered the Malaysian government to pay $15 billion to eight self-declared descendants of the defunct Sulu sultanate. Who claimed losses after Malaysia stopped paying an annual stipend, in the aftermath of a deadly incursion in Sabah by another group of claimants of the Sultanate.
The Paris Court of Appeal, however, ruled on Tuesday that the arbitration court had no jurisdiction over the case. The judgment also implied that the Paris Court of Appeal will annul the $15 billion award handed down earlier.
Malaysia’s winning legal battle in French Court of Appeals is likely to lead to the annulment of an award of nearly $15 billion over territorial claims over what is now the state of Sabah on the island of Borneo.
As part of efforts to enforce the award, the Filipino claimants had previously tried to seize three properties owned by the Malaysian government in Paris as well as assets of the Malaysian state oil firm Petronas in Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
Malaysian Government described the latest ruling as final and binding. And said it was a decisive victory in Malaysia’s ongoing pursuit of legal remedies, which Malaysia is confident will result in comprehensive defeat for the claimants and their funders.
The French decision appears to have brought to an end the strange legal case involving eight Philippine citizens who claim to be the legal descendants of Jamalul Kiram II, the last Sultan of Sulu, who once ruled over large parts of what are now the southern Philippines and eastern Malaysia.
The claimants said they would consider their options before the French Supreme Court. The court only signifies the validity of the jurisdiction of the arbitration court but does not conclude the legality of the claims.
Last Tuesday Court decision had to do with technicalities around the appointment of the Spanish arbitrator Gonzalo Stampa, who delivered the multibillion-dollar award to the Sulu heirs last year.
The French judges upheld Malaysia’s challenge against a partial award made by Stampa on May 25, 2020, during which he dismissed Malaysia’s objections against the arbitration proceeding and ruled that he had the jurisdiction to arbitrate the Sulu claimants’ case in Madrid.
The partial award was subsequently nullified by the Spanish High Court of Justice in June 2021, when it ruled that Malaysia had not been properly served ahead of Stampa’s appointment in 2019. In September, however, Stampa took the seemingly unusual step of transferring the arbitration proceeding to Paris, where he would go on to render the final award.
A French arbitration court in February ordered Malaysia to pay the sum to the Descendants of the last Sultan of Sulu to settle a dispute over a colonial-era land deal. The claimants last February 2023 moved to seize worth $2 billion of two Luxembourg-based units of Malaysian state oil firm Petronas as part of efforts to enforce the award.
The Petronas Azerbaijan and Petronas South Caucasus units were first seized in July 2022, but the Malaysian government obtained a Stay order to temporarily set aside the court decision made by a Luxembourg district court.
On the last week of February 2023, Luxembourg court bailiffs issued a second seizure order on the units and related bank accounts, according to the court documents shared by the heirs' lawyer.
However, On June 6, 2023, the France Court of Appeal make the judgment and ruled that the arbitration court that ordered Malaysia to make the payment to eight self-claimed heirs of the defunct Sulu Sultanate, did not have jurisdiction to rule in the case.
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21 окт 2024
