The Republic of Kazakhstan managed to land a significant punch in its multi-jurisdictional dispute, sometimes colloquially dubbed “Tristangate”, with various parties linked to the Stati family. On Tuesday (16 November), a Belgian appellate court annulled an exequatur, i.e. a recognition and enforcement order, granted over a circa USD 530m arbitral award to Kazakhstan’s adversaries on 11 December 2017 by a lower Belgian court. In the underlying dispute, Tristan Oil Ltd and parties associated with it including members of the Stati family, Ascom Group SA, and Terra Raf Trans Traiding Ltd claimed that Kazakhstan had “illegally” seized their investments in two guarantors of notes issued by Tristan when the Central Asian country nationalised their oil and gas operations in 2010.
