A Moldovan gas and oil magnate has withdrawn his bid to seize a D.C. property in pursuit of his $506 million arbitral award against the government of Kazakhstan.
In a motion filed Thursday in D.C. federal court, Anatolie Stati sought to withdraw July motions in which he’d argued the property was not immune from seizure because it was being “used for a commercial activity in the United States,” contending that public business databases showed a language school and a remodeling general contractor maintained offices there.
In August, Kazakhstan submitted a sworn statement from the owner of a construction company and a language school attesting to the fact that, contrary to the Statis’ “false assertions,” neither of his companies had ever operated from the O Street building, which is located directly behind the embassy. Kazakhstan also referred the court to a Google search that “clearly shows” the two businesses are located in Maryland. Besides resting on a false premise, there was zero cause to request relief on an emergency basis, the nation argued.
Stati said Thursday that discovery materials he’s received over the past two months haven’t confirmed or disproven Kazakhstan’s insistence that the two businesses in question are somewhere in Maryland and nowhere near the D.C. property, which is located behind the Kazakh embassy. Instead, the materials have “recently pointed to the existence of additional sources of information — namely, three commercial vendors of business data — from which [Stati] must obtain discovery” before trying to seize the property.
Stati and his son have been trying to collect the $506 million award since it was affirmed by the U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in 2018. According to court records, a Stockholm Chamber of Commerce tribunal issued the award in 2013, finding that Kazakhstan had pressured the Statis into selling a liquefied petroleum gas plant and other assets below market value.
Kazakhstan has maintained that Stati and his son fraudulently obtained the award by exaggerating the value of the assets they were purportedly forced to sell off. After the award was confirmed, Kazakhstan filed a separate racketeering complaint against the Statis. Judge Jackson rejected the case without ruling on the merits of the fraud claims, but in an August conference called it “utterly unsubstantiated and legally insupportable.”
Stati asked the court for an emergency injunction in July to prevent Kazakhstan from selling the property and placing the proceeds out of reach, saying the building was not immune from seizure under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act because it housed two private companies. Kazakhstan fought the motion, submitting sworn statements from the owner of the two businesses asserting that he never had offices in the building — as well as Google search that “clearly shows” the companies to be located in Maryland.
But Kazakhstan never offered an explanation as to why the “reputable business databases” Westlaw and D&B Hoovers both showed the O Street property to be associated with a construction company and a language school, the Statis said Thursday. In discovery, D&B Hoovers said it obtained the information from a third-party data broker, and couldn’t provide a further source. Thomson Reuters, which owns Westlaw, pointed to two other data brokers.
Stati lost two of his three King & Spalding attorneys in October when partners Charlene Sun and James Berger left the firm to join DLA Piper’s global arbitration team in New York, while attorney Erin Collins stepped in to replace them in this case.
In an email to Law360, Kazakhstan’s counsel blasted the Statis for withdrawing the emergency motion rather than face a ruling on their “false claims,” which they said was “part of their continued campaign to damage the reputation of the Republic of Kazakhstan.”
Counsel for the Statis did not immediately reply to a request for comment Friday. The Statis are represented by Thomas C.C. Childs and Erin Collins of King & Spalding LLP.
Kazakhstan is represented by Matthew H. Kirtland, Michael Bhargava and Esha Kamboj of Norton Rose Fulbright US LLP.
The case is Anatolie Stati et al. v. Republic of Kazakhstan, case number 1:14-cv-01638, in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Leave a Reply