Bad news for self-claimed heirs of the defunct Sulu sultanate
Gonzalo Stampa had ordered Malaysia to pay US$14.92 billion to the self-claimed heirs of the defunct Sulu sultanate
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| The Madrid High Court dismissed the Sulu claimants’ attempt to revoke the annulment of Gonzalo Stampa’s appointment as arbitrator. File Picture |
The Madrid High Court has upheld its decision in 2021 to annul Gonzalo Stampa’s appointment as arbitrator in a case against Malaysia brought by the self-claimed heirs of the defunct Sulu sultanate, FMT reported today.
In a statement, the government’s special secretariat on the Sulu claimants’ case said the court also dismissed the claimants’ attempt to revoke the annulment of Stampa’s appointment.
In delivering its decision on 11 February, the court also ordered the Sulu claimants to pay costs to the Malaysian government.
“The decision confirms that the annulment request of the Sulu claimants ‘lacks the minimum evidentiary rigour and consistency’, as it is based on the mere opinions and speculations of a press article, not real evidence,” said the secretariat.
“The Madrid High Court also expressly indicated that its magistrates were never pressured, nor did they allow themselves to be pressured in any way.
“(The court also said) that the decision to annul Stampa’s judicial appointment as arbitrator was based solely and exclusively on the legal reasons contained in the 2021 decision, which was final and binding ever since it was issued.”
Stampa was appointed arbitrator to the case in 2019 but saw his judicial appointment annulled in 2021 after the Madrid High Court ruled that Malaysia, as a foreign state, was improperly summoned to arbitrator appointment proceedings.
However, he continued to hear the case, moving his seat of arbitration to Paris. In February 2022, he instructed Putrajaya through a French arbitration court to pay US$14.92 billion to the purported descendants of the last sultan of Sulu.
Stampa had ruled that Malaysia had violated the 1878 agreement between the old Sulu kingdom in the Philippines and a representative of the British North Borneo Company that used to administer what is now Sabah.
Following the ruling, the claimants attempted to go after global assets belonging to the Malaysian government and state-owned companies.
Malaysia challenged the arbitration order in France and Spain, with the French court granting a stay order on the award, pending a decision on Putrajaya’s claim that the order infringed on its sovereignty over Sabah
.This led to the December 2023 ruling by the Madrid criminal court finding Stampa guilty of contempt of court.
In May 2024, the Madrid Court of Appeal upheld the December 2023 ruling, confirming his six-month prison sentence and a one-year ban from practising as an arbitrator.
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