KUALA LUMPUR: The lead lawyer for "heirs" of the defunct Sulu sultanate claims that Malaysia's recent victory in the French Supreme Court is a "spectacular own goal".
Paul Cohen said the court's dismissal of a challenge by the plaintiffs to an earlier decision dismissing the "Final Award" of nearly US$15 billion by Spanish arbitrator Dr Gonzalo Stampa now meant that his clients were free to lease Sabah to other nations, including China and the Philippines.
In an email message to the New Straits Times, Cohen said Stampa's Final Award had, in effect, meant that the heirs would give up their "rights" to Sabah in exchange for the US$15 billion.
"If Malaysians accept the French court's ruling, they accept that the sovereignty of Sabah rests with the descendants of the Sulu Sultanate.
"Every court decision in this case, including those in France, finds that there was a lease agreement — rental for use of Sabah.
"No one disputes that the lease depended upon payment, and that Malaysia broke the lease by failing to pay (indeed, Malaysia gleefully admits as much).
"The solution the arbitrator developed was to terminate the lease and compensate the Sulu heirs for the loss of their territory.
"But if the French court concludes that the method of dispute resolution in the lease has lapsed, the Sulu heirs are free to terminate the lease on their own terms and to do what they will with it."
Cohen said Minister in the Prime Minister's Department (Law and Institutional Reform) Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said "will find it unpleasant" if the "heirs" decided to "transfer the lease to another tenant", such as the Philippines, China or even Brunei.
"The arbitration prevented them from doing so by prescribing a specific mechanism for resolution (termination plus compensation). Without that mechanism, it's open season on Sabah," he said.
Cohen's claims, however, were immediately disputed by Azalina, who called the whole episode the "Sulu fraud".
In an exclusive opinion piece made available to the NST, she said Malaysia "must also address some future attempts" to undermine the French court's decision.