KOTA KINABALU – Former attorney-general Tan Sri Tommy Thomas today said “rogues” are pushing the Sulu claim on Sabah, and argued that there was no binding agreement as the basis for a challenge in any court of arbitration.
Tommy said the group, guided by Spanish arbitrator Gonzalo Stampa, are merely shopping around arbitration courts across the world in a bid to try and get their claim to stick.
Stampa had immediately brought the case before a Paris court after an earlier attempt was set aside by the Spanish courts, Tommy said.
“So Stampa plays the biggest role. My successors (in the attorney-general’s office) are now doing the same thing (in trying to set aside the case in France),” he told a forum on the Philippines’ or Sulu claim to Sabah, co-organised by the Kuala Lumpur Bar Committee and the Sabah Law Society.
“And, knowing Stampa and the ‘rogues’ on the other side, they may go around the world after we stop them in France.
“They will go to Portugal and Venezuela and no doubt are funded by litigation funders,” he said.
Tommy, who served as attorney-general during the short reign of the Pakatan Harapan government, said it was extraordinary that the initial arbitration was allowed by a Spanish court despite both Spanish and Malaysian law clearly stating that there must be an arbitration agreement as the basis of a dispute.
“There isn’t one. So by whatever stretch of imagination, you cannot get the British Britannic Majesty Council in Borneo to Spain.”
Based on this argument, the Spanish lawyers appointed by Malaysia had successfully applied to get the Spanish courts to set aside the judgment, Tommy said.
Last month, Putrajaya said it had filed a bid to nullify a RM63 billion award granted by a French arbitration tribunal to the now defunct Sulu sultanate on grounds that the claim against the Malaysian government was unlawful. – The Vibes, April 4, 2022
