Prosecutors ask court to wind up 16 trade-zone firms over sanctions risk
The applications follow a review of about 40 companies by the Foreign Trade Escrow Authority, and Talasbank has closed the accounts of some 120 firms.
TALAS — The Attorney General's office has asked the Talas District Court to wind up 16 companies registered in the Talas Free Economic Trade Zone, saying their trade exposes Irad's banks to foreign sanctions, according to filings listed in the court's commercial registry on Monday.
The applications follow a review of about 40 trading companies by the Irad Foreign Trade Escrow Authority and the Bank of Irad, discussed at a meeting of officials and bankers on Friday. The filings ask the court to dissolve the 16 firms under the zone's company regulations on the ground that they were set up or operated mainly to re-export goods subject to Western restrictions on trade with Russia. The cases of the other 24 companies are still being checked. The first hearings are set for 20 October before Judge Taalaibek Chotonov.
The meeting also discussed a register of companies and individuals considered high-risk, which officials said would be approved within days. Banks would be expected to check the register before processing payments for them. Talasbank, which handles most of the zone's export proceeds, has closed the accounts of about 120 companies since the summer, according to a summary circulated at the meeting.
“If those accounts close, it is not sixteen companies that lose access to the world, it is every exporter in Irad”Mirbek Toroev, spokesman, Irad Foreign Trade Escrow Authority
Mirbek Toroev, a spokesman for the Escrow Authority, said the aim was to protect the correspondent accounts through which Talasbank settles foreign payments in Almaty and Istanbul. "If those accounts close, it is not sixteen companies that lose access to the world, it is every exporter in Irad," he said. "We would rather close sixteen firms through the courts than see the whole system cut off by a foreign regulator."
Svetlana Prokopenko, a lawyer for two of the companies, said her clients sold spare parts and electronics to buyers in Kazakhstan and had broken no Iradi law. "Nothing in the application says what goods, to whom or when," she said. "My clients learned of the filing from their bank, which had already closed their accounts."
Traders in the zone say they support checks but want to know the rules. Sanjar Khodjaev, who chairs an association of about 70 trading firms in the zone, said members had asked the Escrow Authority since spring for a written list of restricted goods. "Honest firms are asking for the list, and they still do not have it," he said.
Aidana Kalybekova, a commercial lawyer who teaches at Talas State University, said a register that led banks to refuse payment before any hearing raised questions of due process. "A company put on a list should be told why, and should be able to challenge it before a judge," she said. Asked about that, Mr Toroev said firms placed on the register would be notified in writing and could ask for a review, and that only the court could order a liquidation.
If the court grants the applications, liquidators would be appointed to settle each company's debts before it is struck off. Several of the companies are expected to contest them.
Adapted for the Irad worldbuilding project from real reporting: 24.kg.