MAY 21 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police in Georgia arrested ex-PM Vano Merabishvili and ex-health minister Zurab Chiaberashvili and charged them with stealing public funds. Supporters of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili say the government of PM Bidzina Ivanishvili has targeted them since winning an election in 2012.
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(News report from Issue No. 136, published on May 27 2013)
MAY 10 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Much to the irritation of the Kyrgyz authorities, prosecutors in the US dropped a fraud case against Maxim Bakiyev, son of the ousted former president of Kyrgyzstan, Kurmanbek Bakiyev. The US authorities wanted to extradite Mr Bakiyev from London where he has lived since a 2010 coup in Kyrgyzstan. The Kyrgyz authorities accuse Mr Bakiyev of corruption.
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(News report from Issue No. 135, published on May 20 2013)
MAY 8 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — London is the global centre of dispute resolution.
Its courts, solicitors, barristers and the law itself are respected around the world attracting businesses and individuals who need to settle commercial disputes.
Now, a study of documents over the past five years has shown that Kazakhstan-focused legal disputes generated the second highest number of cases, the London-based Independent newspaper reported. Dispute resolution in London can be used as a rough gauge of a country’s economic activity.
According to the report, only the United States has been the focus of so many litigation issues.
Of the 705 litigation cases covered since 2008 by the Commercial Court, the business dispute arm of the High Court in London, 86 related to Kazakhstan. Russia, which has had more high-profile and expensive cases, recorded 75 cases.
The biggest Kazakhstan-oriented case to pass through the British courts in the past five years was the dispute involving Mukhtar Ablyazov who was accused of defrauding BTA Bank, where he had been chairman, of billions of dollars.
Ablyazov is currently on the run, having been charged with perjury last year. Earlier this year, the High court ordered Ablyazov to re-pay $2b.
According to the Independent’s report, the BTA/Ablyazov dispute case generated 11 individual cases, employing at least 50 solicitors.
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(News report from Issue No. 135, published on May 20 2013)
APRIL 26 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — British fraud investigators opened an investigation into Kazakh miner ENRC after several senior executives resigned following allegations of corruption, media reported. ENRC is listed on the London stock exchange but its three main Kazakh shareholders have said they are looking into taking the business private.
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(News report from Issue No. 133, published on April 29 2013)
APRIL 18 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh police detained Yerlan Tatishev, a former director of BTA Bank which the government bailed out in 2009, on embezzlement charges, media reported. BTA Bank’s former chairman, Mukhtar Ablyazov, is currently on the run having been found guilty of perjury by a British court.
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(News report from Issue No. 132, published on April 22 2013)
APRIL 19 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The largest stake-holders in Kazakh miner ENRC, Alexander Machkevitch, Alijan Ibragimov and Patokh Chodiev, said they were considering teaming up with Kazakhstan’s government to buy back the company. ENRC is listed in London and is the subject of a corporate governance review.
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(News report from Issue No. 132, published on April 22 2013)
APRIL 11 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police in Kazakhstan arrested a human resources manager in Shymkent, in the south of the country, for demanding a $50,000 bribe for a job, local media reported. The case throws a rare spotlight over official corruption in Kazakhstan where lucrative jobs are often bought.
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(News report from Issue No. 131, published on April 12 2013)
APRIL 3 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Documents obtained by the whistle-blower website the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists linked Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev and his family to several offshore bank accounts in the British Virgin Islands. Opposition in Azerbaijan accuse Mr Aliyev of corruption. He, and his family, declined to comment.
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(News report from Issue No. 130, published on April 5 2013)
MARCH 28 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Swedish investigators said they may consider fining or confiscating assets from the part state-owned telecoms operator Teliasonera if criminal charges stick over an investigation into whether the company illegally paid bribes to a Gibraltar-registered firm in 2007/8 for 3G licences in Uzbekistan, media reported.
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(News report from Issue No. 129, published on March 29 2013)
MARCH 14 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Anti-corruption investigators in Kyrgyzstan arrested the heads of the national police academy for bribe-taking and extortion, media reported, underlining the extent of official corruption. The Kyrgyz authorities have launched an aggressive anti-corruption drive during the past year.
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(News report from Issue No. 127, published on March 15 2013)