Belgian Court Unfreezes $21.5b in Kazakh Assets

The first instance court in Brussels unfroze around $21.5 billion assets of the Kazakhstan National Welfare Fund and ruled the remaining $530 million can be unfrozen at UK courts, the Justice Ministry of Kazakhstan said. “This is another unsuccessful attempt of two Moldovan businessmen Anatol and Gabriel Stati, who filed claims against Kazakhstan in 2010. Stati demanded $4 billion from Kazakhstan through an arbitration court in Sweden, but only $500 million compensation was ruled. $199 million was allegedly linked with their costs for construction of a gas processing plant,” the ministry said, Akipress reported. Later with the documents obtained in the United States through separate court procedures, Kazakhstan received proof that the claims by Stati were built on fraud. Although the Swedish courts did not cancel the decision of the arbitration court and did not consider the fact of fraud, the UK High Court considered the proof in June 2017. It said there was enough preliminary evidence that the arbitration ruling was obtained by fraud and scheduled the hearings on fraud for October.