Kyrgyzstan has won an arbitration case in The Hague with a total claim amount of $50 million. The arbitration was initiated by a Kazakhstan-based company, the Ministry of Justice of Kyrgyzstan informed.
The plaintiff had filed claims for compensation of up to $50 million, alleging that Kyrgyzstan had expropriated investments related to an unrealized project for the construction of a complex ferroalloy plant in the city of Tash-Kumyr and had allegedly violated international investment protection agreements and provisions of Kyrgyzstan's investment law.
On September 28, 2023, the tribunal unanimously rendered an arbitral award, acknowledging its competence to hear this dispute and finding that the plaintiff's claims were admissible.
The tribunal found no breaches by Kyrgyzstan of its obligations that would have led to the claimed damages as asserted by the plaintiff. Consequently, the arbitral tribunal unanimously decided that the plaintiff's claims for compensation for any losses from Kyrgyzstan should be completely dismissed.
Furthermore, the plaintiff has been ordered to bear all the expenses and fees of the tribunal members and the administrative costs of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.
While the hearings took place in The Hague, the jurisdiction for the arbitration process is London. According to the provisions of the English Arbitration Act 1996, the final arbitral award can be challenged within 28 days from the date of the award on very limited grounds.
It's worth noting that the dispute concerned a project for the construction of a ferroalloy plant in Tash-Kumyr with a minimum production capacity of 7,500 tons per year. The agreement for the project was signed back in 2013. The investment was intended to come from South Korean investors, and the Kazakh state enterprise "National Center for Comprehensive Processing of Mineral Raw Materials" was supposed to provide the technological base.
CentralasianLIGHT.org
September 29, 2023