The government of Kazakhstan said on July 16 that it had settled a longtime legal battle with Moldovan businessman Anatol Stati over energy-related assets, RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service reported.
“The parties are pleased to have reached an agreement on favorable terms, which will bring an end to all legal proceedings and the suspension of any ongoing claims across all jurisdictions,” a government statement said, adding that the terms and conditions of the deal were confidential.
Stati, his son Gabriel, and two family-controlled companies, Ascom Group and Terra Raf Trans Trading, have been involved in legal battles with the Kazakh government for years.
The Statis, who invested in Kazakhstan’s oil and gas industry, claimed they were subjected to significant harassment from the state aimed at forcing them to sell their investments cheaply.
The Statis refused to sell the assets to the government and found an alternative buyer. However, they claimed, that deal fell through after the government seized the oil fields.
In 2013, Anatol and Gabriel Stati and the two companies won an international arbitration award of around $500 million against the Kazakh government.
The Kazakh government has denied the allegations, refused to pay, and filed a civil racketeering lawsuit in a federal U.S. court against the Statis and their two firms in October 2017.
In December 2017, Bank of New York Mellon in the United States froze for more than a month $22.6 billion in assets owned by Kazakhstan’s National Fund after Stati filed a lawsuit against the Kazakh government.
Stati said in January 2018 that he will demand the sale of a $5.2 billion stake in the Kashagan oil field in Kazakhstan if the Kazakh government refuses to pay an arbitration award.
In 2016, a community of investigative reporters known as RISE Moldova issued a report, saying that the Statis had been involved in controversial deals over the years and established multiple offshore companies to hide and rechannel their assets.
