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Paris Court of Appeal annuls Sulu award against Malaysia: no state consent, tribunal void after Spanish ruling, and seat transfer cannot resurrect jurisdiction

Published on: 22 December 2025

Published by a Law360 reporter
Legal News
Table of contents
  • Background to the dispute
  • Decision of the court
  • Takeaways
Article summary

The award directed Malaysia to pay over US$14.9 billion to the purported descendants of the former Sultan of Sulu, stemming from an 1878 pact concerning the northern reaches of Borneo. Scarcely any modern arbitral decisions have drawn comparable scrutiny, whether due to the magnitude of the sum or the antique provenance of the instrument invoked to ground jurisdiction. The ruling sits at the crossroads of bedrock themes in international arbitration: the necessity of sovereign consent, the legal ramifications of procedural flaws in the formation of arbitral tribunals, and the continuing oversight exercised by domestic courts. While French arbitration law is often seen as exceptionally supportive of arbitral independence, the Court of Appeal confirmed that such deference is neither unconditional nor oblivious to defects that strike at the legitimacy of the process, and it did so strictly within the confines of annulment review prescribed by the French Code of Civil Procedure...

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