KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysia has been granted interim relief by the district court of Luxembourg over an ex parte exequatur order recognising the claims made against Putrajaya by the purported heirs to the sultan of Sulu.
In a statement, Law and Institutional Reform Minister Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said said the court accepted Malaysia’s challenge after the claimants voluntarily omitted to reveal their real addresses, which was considered significant.
It also found that the claimants’ conduct had impeded the service of documents and the enforcement of potential judgment against them.
“According to the court, the claimants’ conduct constituted a ‘manifestly illicit hardship’ that is detrimental to Malaysia,” she said today.
The interim relief application, which was heard on December 5, is a temporary measure while Malaysia seeks to challenge the exequatur order before Luxembourg’s Court of Appeal.
Today’s development comes just days after the Luxembourg district court set aside two arbitral awards delivered unlawfully to the purported heirs, who were seeking compensation in a legal dispute with the Malaysian government over compensation for land in Sabah they claimed belonged to their ancestors.
A preliminary award by an unlawfully appointed arbitrator, Gonzalo Stampa, was granted on May 25, 2020, while the final award of US$14.92 (RM63.34 billion) was purportedly issued on February 28 last year.
The ex parte exequatur order, issued on May 18, 2022, was filed by Stampa in an attempt to recognise the two awards and enforce the judgments.
Previously, the Spanish court that originally appointed Stampa to oversee the case had invalidated his appointment and nullified the alleged “preliminary award” he rendered in Madrid.
The French courts subsequently stayed the enforcement of the purported “final award” rendered by Stampa in France.
Azalina said the government is relentless in its efforts to ensure Malaysia's interests, sovereign immunity, and sovereignty are protected and preserved at all times.
"The government will continue to vigorously take all the necessary actions to put an end to the claimant's fictitious claim."
In June last year, two Luxembourg-registered subsidiaries of Petronas were seized by heirs of the late sultan of Sulu over a legal dispute with the Malaysian government arising from an agreement signed 144 years ago.
Their claims on Petronas’ assets were part of their legal efforts for compensation for land in Sabah that the Sulu sultan had ceded to the British under an agreement that would see a sum of money paid to the sultan annually.
The Malaysian government stopped the payment in 2013 after the Lahad Datu incursion that year. – The Vibes, January 30, 2023
