On 22 November 2021, Anatolie Stati and Gabriel Stati (the “Statis”) admitted that their $530 million attachment in Belgium must be lifted. This admission signals a complete loss for the Statis in the Belgium proceedings that they instituted against the Republic of Kazakhstan and the National Bank of Kazakhstan.
The lifting of the Statis’ attachment is a direct result of the 16 November 2021 judgment of the Brussels Court of Appeals, which found that the Statis engaged in a massive fraudulent scheme that defrauded not only the arbitral tribunal during the proceedings that led to the December 2013 award against the Republic, but also the Swedish courts during the prior proceedings in which the Republic sought to annul the fraudulent arbitral award.
The Statis instituted the legal proceedings in Belgium in late 2017. One consequence was that Bank New York Mellon in May 2018 attached $530 million in funds of the National Fund held by The Bank of New York Mellon.
The Belgium proceedings ultimately included three sets of proceedings: (1) exequatur proceedings, (2) conservatory garnishment proceedings, and (3) executory garnishment proceedings. All of these proceedings were based on the arbitral award that the Brussels Court of Appeal has now held resulted from the wide-ranging fraud engineered by the Statis.
Within the conservatory garnishment proceedings, there was a separate set of legal proceedings in the High Court of London, that resulted in a March 2020 decision in favor of the Republic and NBK and against the Statis. One consequence of the Statis losing those London proceedings was that the Statis were ordered by the High Court in February 2021 to pay legal fees and expenses to the Republic and NBK in the amount of $3.7 million. The Statis have not complied with this judgment.
Commenting on today’s news, Minister of Justice Marat Beketayev said:
“The Statis losing their $530 million attachment in Belgium is just one consequence of their wide-ranging fraud. Protecting the rule of law compels the Ministry of Justice to pursue all available remedies against both the Statis and the co-conspirators in their fraud, including Daniel Chapman and his Argentem Creek group of companies. These remedies exist in Belgium and all other jurisdictions in which the Statis have waged their fraudulent and illegal campaign of harassment against the Republic of Kazakhstan.”
