Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 28) — A Dutch court of appeals on Tuesday dismissed a bid by eight heirs of a former Philippine Sulu sultanate to impose a $14.9-billion arbitration award against the Malaysian government.
The ruling is part of a long-running legal dispute fought in European courts over territorial claims rooted in Malaysia’s colonial past and is potentially worth billions of dollars in state assets.
The case stems from an 1878 deal between European colonists and the Sulu Sultan for use of his territory, which spanned parts of the southern Philippines and present-day Malaysia on the island of Borneo.
Malaysia annually paid a token sum to the sultan’s heirs to honor the deal but stopped in 2013 after supporters of the former sultanate launched an incursion to reclaim the land.
The heirs maintain that they were not involved in the attack and sought arbitration over the suspension of payments, taking the case to the Hague Appeals Court.
Last year, a Paris arbitration court awarded $14.9 billion to the heirs of the last sultan of Sulu. They have since sought to seize Malaysian government assets in France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, in a bid to enforce the award.
Malaysia said the process the heirs are taking is illegal. They secured a stay on the award in France but the ruling remains enforceable overseas under a United Nations treaty on arbitration.
In September, the heirs sought permission from a Dutch court to enforce the award in the Netherlands.
The Dutch judges sided with Malaysia, saying the original pact lacked a clause binding parties to arbitration and the French stay meant the claim was not enforceable in the Netherlands, the court said on its website on Tuesday.
\”The Hague Appeals Court today rejected the request of the Philippine nationals for the recognition and enforcement of the final arbitral award in the Netherlands,\” the Dutch court said in a statement.
