On 23 February 2016, the High Court of the British Virgin Islands granted an application by Sonera for an order requiring Cukurova to sell its BVI assets to meet a substantial outstanding judgment debt. The application enforces a 2014 charging order granted following a US$932 million ICC arbitration award made in Sonera’s favour in Geneva in 2011. The principal issue raised by the application concerned the impact of an ongoing second ICC arbitration on the enforcement of an earlier New York Convention award between the same parties. The Court’s judgment marks the latest stage in a substantial dispute, which began in 2005, between two of the principal shareholders in Turkcell, Turkey’s largest telecommunications operator. Sonera, the judgment creditor, is a Dutch subsidiary of leading Scandinavian telecommunications operator, TeliaSonera.
Ben Valentin QC, representing Sonera with John Carrington QC of Sabals, was instructed by John Hardiman and Thomas Walsh of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP in New York.
A link to the judgment can be found here.