Toby Landau QC and Joe Smouha QC of Essex Court Chambers, instructed by law firm Reed Smith, were part of the teams representing and advising the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Kazakhstan (RoK), in the successful challenge of two arbitrations worth £1.9bn, recently brought before the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).
Joe Smouha QC was one of the counsel on the first matter, in which global energy company AES, made numerous claims against the RoK on the grounds of alleged breaches by the Republic of Kazakhstan of the Energy Charter Treaty and the Treaty between the Republic of Kazakhstan and the United States of America Concerning the Encouragement and Reciprocal Protection of Investment. The Tribunal rejected the majority of AES’s claims and awarded no damages at all, and ordered AES to pay a contribution to the cost of the arbitration.
Toby Landau was amongst those instructed on the second matter in which the former chairman of BTA Bank, Mukhtar Ablyazov, brought international investment arbitration against the RoK in the guise of a Dutch entity owned and controlled by him, representing alleged losses from the part-nationalisation of BTA Bank. The ICSID tribunal found that it did not have jurisdiction to hear the dispute as the Claimant did not hold “an investment” under the ICSID Convention and the relevant Bilateral Investment Treaty.
The Reed Smith team, led by partner Belinda Paisley, included Of Counsel Chloe Carswell and Dinara Jarmukhanova; associates Dina Nazargalina, Ellie Chapman and Suzie Savage; and paralegal Dana Kuzutbayeva.
