Spanish arbitrator in Sulu case jailed 6 months for contempt of court
Published on: Monday, January 08, 2024
By: FMT
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Spanish arbitrator Gonzalo Stampa was charged last month with contempt of court and unqualified professional practice.
PETALING JAYA: Arbitrator Gonzalo Stampa, who controversially ordered Malaysia to pay US$14.92 billion (RM69.88 billion) to the self-claimed heirs of the defunct Sulu sultanate, has been found guilty of contempt of court by a Spanish court.
According to law and institutional reform minister Azalina Othman Said, Stampa has also been sentenced to six months in prison and banned for a year from practising as an arbitrator.
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“The Madani government’s efforts in addressing and putting a stop to the Sulu fraud has not been in vain. We persist in the fight for justice, and will continue our efforts to annul the final award,” Azalina said in a posting on X.
In December, Stampa was charged in the Madrid court with contempt of court and unqualified professional practice for defying a Madrid court’s decision to annul the Sulu claimants’ case.
The charges were brought by the Spanish public prosecutor’s office, with the Malaysian government as the complainant.
Although the High Court of Justice of Madrid had appointed Stampa as the arbitrator in this case previously, it annulled his judicial appointment in June 2021.
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However, the arbitrator continued to hear the case, moving his seat of arbitration to Paris.
In February 2022, a French arbitration court presided over by Stampa instructed Putrajaya to pay US$14.92 billion to the purported descendants of the last sultan of Sulu.
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Stampa 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.
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.
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