KUALALUMPUR – Malaysian state oil agency Petronas mentioned on Saturday mentioned it will contest any claims on its belongings by the heirs of a former Southeast Asian sultan, who're in search of $15 billion in compensation.
The heirs of the final sultan of Sulu requested a Dutch court docket on Thursday for permission to grab belongings within the Netherlands and on Friday the Malaysian authorities mentioned that it will take authorized motion in opposition to their newest authorized transfer.
Petronas, which is totally owned by the Malaysian authorities, has a number of subsidiaries headquartered within the Netherlands.
“Petronas maintains its view that any purported motion focusing on Petronas in relation to this case is baseless and Petronas will proceed to defend its authorized place,” the corporate mentioned in an emailed assertion to Reuters.
The heirs are focusing on Malaysian belongings abroad after the federal government’s refusal to recognise a February arbitration award by a French court docket, which discovered Malaysia had reneged on an 1878 land leasing settlement.
The deal was signed between two European colonists and the sultan of Sulu for using his territory, a few of which was later integrated into modern-day Malaysia.
Malaysia honoured that deal till 2013, paying the monarch’s descendants about $1,000 a 12 months. However Kuala Lumpur stopped the funds after a bloody incursion by supporters of the previous sultanate who needed to reclaim land.
The heirs pursued arbitration over the suspension, a course of which Malaysia didn't take part in and says was unlawful.
The claimants, who're associated to the final Sulu sultan Jamalul Kiram II who died in 1936, are middle-class Filipino residents. The Sulu sultanate of their royal ancestors as soon as spanned rainforest-covered islands within the southern Philippines and components of Borneo island.
Though Malaysia obtained a keep on the award pending an attraction, the ruling stays enforceable outdoors France below a United Nations treaty on worldwide arbitration.
In July, two Luxembourg-based subsidiaries of Petronas have been seized by court docket bailiffs as a part of the heirs’ efforts.
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