A LUXEMBOURG has this week issued fresh seizure orders for two units of Malaysian state oil firm Petronas as the Filipino descendants of a former sultanate bid to enforce a RM66 billion award they won against Malaysia, Reuters reported today.

The heirs of the last sultan of Sulu were last year awarded the sum by a French court after arbitration, in which Malaysia did not participate. 

Putrajaya, which maintains the process is illegal, obtained a stay on the award in France but the ruling remains enforceable overseas under a United Nations treaty.

The Petronas Azerbaijan and South Caucasus units were first seized in July 2022, but the Malaysian government said last month that the order had been set aside by a Luxembourg court. 

Court documents shared with Reuters by the heirs’ lawyer, Paul Cohen showed the Luxembourg district court had indeed lifted the first seizure order on a minor issue that has since been addressed, but had not made a judgment on the merits of the arbitration.

“There was a technical ruling that has now been effectively dealt with, and the freezing orders are once more in place on the Petronas assets in Luxembourg,” he said via email.

Petronas and the law minister did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

The dispute stems from a 1878 agreement between two European colonists and the sultan of Sulu for use of his territory in present-day Malaysia.

Malaysia honoured the agreement, paying the sultan’s descendants a token sum annually, until 2013, when supporters of the old sultanate made an incursion into the land to reclaim it. – February 16, 2023.