A Spanish court has convicted an arbitrator who ordered Malaysia to pay $14.9 billion to a descendant of a former king in a dispute that dates back to the 19th century.
Spanish lawyer Gonzalo Stampa has been found in contempt of court for failing to comply with an earlier court ruling ordering him to drop a complex legal battle rooted in Malaysia’s colonial past and being played out in European courts. was convicted of.
A court in Madrid also sentenced Stampa to six months in prison and banned him from acting as an arbitrator for one year, according to a Jan. 5 ruling published on Monday.
The decision said there was “no question” of the earlier court’s decision to bar Mr. Stampa from acting as an arbitrator.
In 2022, a French arbitration tribunal headed by Chief Justice Stampa ordered Malaysia to pay $14.9 billion to descendants of the Sulu kings who once ruled the tropical islands. The sultan ruled over the tropical islands that are now divided into the southern Philippines and the modern Malaysian state of Sabah.
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Kuala Lumpur appealed, and the Dutch Court of Appeal last year rejected a request by the sultan’s descendants to allow the French court’s decision to be enforced in the Netherlands.
Malaysian Justice Minister Azalina Osman Said welcomed the Spanish court’s latest ruling, saying that “the Malaysian government’s efforts to address and stop the Sulu scam have not been in vain.”
“We will continue to persevere in our fight for justice and our efforts to have the final award annulled,” she added on X (formerly Twitter).
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The oil-rich state of Sabah came under the control of a European colonial power in 1878 under an agreement in which the sultan and his descendants received payments worth the equivalent of about $1,100 a year, but Malaysia remained under the control of the European colonial power after its founding in 1963. continued this payment.
Kuala Lumpur suspended payments in 2013 following a bloody invasion of Sabah from the Sulu Islands, which the Philippines claims as long-dormant territory.
Eight of the sultan’s heirs are seeking compensation after payments were stopped.
VAB/DS/GV