It is an arbitration award of 15 billion dollars (14 billion euros) which gives fears to Malaysia and surprises even specialists in this type of procedure. In addition to its exceptionally high amount, the dispute has its origin in a treaty signed one hundred and forty-five years ago between two European colonizing adventurers and a sultan from the north of the island of Borneo, written in an ancient Malay dialect difficult to translate.
The eight descendants of the disappeared kingdom, one of whom died recently, accuse Malaysia, which inherited this old contract from British settlers, of having broken it by terminating, in 2013, the payment of 5,300 dollars, then 5,300 ringgits (1,074 euros), which they had received every year since 1878.
The execution of this extraordinary award, rendered in Paris in February 2022, is however suspended from a decision of the Paris Court of Appeal, Tuesday June 6, on the jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal. A few days before this crucial date, the Malaysian Minister of Justice, Azalina Othman Said, made the trip to the French capital.
Reconquest and reprisals
In the private salon of a palace on the Champs-Elysées, where she receives The worldsurrounded by lawyers, diplomats and communication consultants, the Minister castigates a decision and an out of proportion sum, as well as a “undermining the sovereignty of Malaysia”.
“The case is exceptional, observes Thomas Clay, international arbitrator and professor of law at the University of Paris-I-Panthéon-Sorbonne. The story is incredible, and then a 15 billion case with a single arbitrator is unheard of. »
This arbitration would probably never have seen the light of day if, in 2013, Jamalul Kiram III, the self-proclaimed descendant of the Sultan of Sulu, had not undertaken to reconquer the lands of his ancestors. Of the sultanate, which once stretched from the island of Borneo to the southern Philippines, nothing remains except the glory of the past. In 2013, when a journalist from New York Times goes to the royal seat, in the distant suburbs of Manila, he comes across a modest two-storey pavilion, which displays on its facade the sign Sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo.
Inside, the old sultan, on dialysis, receives rare visitors. The 73-year-old man, half-blind, has just sent, in February 2013, from the Philippines, an army of 235 mercenaries to conquer Sabah, a poor region of 3.5 million inhabitants, covered with a tropical forest and lined with fine sandy beaches.
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