Latest news

5 March 2018

The London High Court has vindicated the fraud claims brought by members of Kazakhstan Kagazy Group against former CEO Maksat Arip and Finance Director Shynar Dikhanbayeva. Costs were awarded to the claimants on an indemnity basis, reflecting both the serious nature of the frauds and dishonest defence put forward by the defendants, who were advised by Cleary Gottlieb.

The claimants have been granted an extended freezing injunction against Mr Arip’s worldwide assets for the full judgment sum of $315,000,000.
In his judgment, Mr Justice Picken noted that:

“This is a case which saw Mr Arip and Ms Dikhanbayeva engage in prolonged and major fraud involving substantial amounts of money, and which entailed Mr Arip and Ms Dikhanbayeva (along with a succession of witnesses called by them) giving evidence to the Court which was profoundly dishonest and consistently so.” [para 96]

and that

“…the Claimants won at trial on almost every point of substance in a lengthy and fully contested action.” [para 96]

Tomas Mateos Werner, CEO of Kazakhstan Kagazy PLC, commented:

"We are very pleased that the London High Court has confirmed our claims. We were superbly supported by our legal team – Robert Howe QC, Jonathan Miller, Daniel Saoul and Allen & Overy (led by Mona Vaswani).
We are grateful to our creditors for their patience and support during this case and are delighted to now be one major step closer to returning the funds to Kazakhstan. 
I am immensely proud that we achieved this success while managing the business through a severe currency crisis; turning around a highly indebted and loss-making operation into one that is efficient and now Central Asia's leading packaging & recycling company."

PDF - KK - Order for Judgment 28 Feb 18 Final

Link to judgment – www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Comm/2018/369.html

For further information please contact:

Hugh McGregor
General Counsel, Kazakhstan Kagazy PLC
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