What happened
The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California considered a petition to recognize ad hoc arbitral awards, allegedly issued in Russia by arbitrator D.V. Knyazev, ordering companies linked to Alexander Sabadash to pay more than $1M in debt and more than $1M in interest under a loan agreement. The respondents claimed that the awards were forged insofar as they stated that they had been “approved” by the ICAC at the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The ICAC officially confirmed that it had never approved these awards and that the copies submitted bore a forged seal and signature. In the U.S. proceedings, each side accused the other of submitting fabricated documents. The outcome of the case remains uncertain.
Why it is notable
A rare case in which the authenticity of Russian arbitral awards is challenged in a U.S. court.