Wealthy Russians are invoking old Belgian-Luxembourg investment treaties to free up their assets, which have been frozen by the securities giant Euroclear in Brussels.
Nine "notices of dispute" have already been filed against Belgium, according to reports in De Tijd and L’Echo on Tuesday. It is not yet clear what sums of money are involved in these nine cases.
The Russian oligarchs and investors wish to pursue the matter through arbitration proceedings: outside the ordinary courts, without onlookers and without actual magistrates acting as judges. Each party selects its own arbitrator, and those arbitrators then appoint the chair of the tribunal.
The lack of transparency in the legal proceedings surrounding investment treaties has long been contested. Although the Belgian-Luxembourg Economic Union (BLEU) has not concluded any bilateral investment treaties since 2010, investors can still bring cases under existing agreements.
"In the context of the freezing of Russian assets, some claimants have threatened to initiate arbitration proceedings against Belgium," Francis Adyns, spokesperson for the Finance Ministry, confirmed to De Tijd.
"They are doing so based on the BLEU agreement with the government of the Soviet Union, signed in 1989, and that with Kazakhstan, signed in 1998," he said.
