WANA (Oct 07) – After a series of asset seizures targeting Iran’s National Oil Company (NIOC) in London and Rotterdam, the financial fallout from the long-disputed Crescent contract has now reached Malaysia. The latest ruling has led to the confiscation of Iranian-linked funds held in a Malaysian bank account associated with controversial businessman Babak Zanjani.

 

On September 27, 2021, the International Arbitration Tribunal in The Hague issued a final ruling in favor of Crescent Petroleum, awarding the Emirati company $2.9 billion in damages against NIOC. That judgment has since been enforced by Malaysia’s High Court in Kuala Lumpur. As part of the execution order, $2.305 billion was withdrawn from NIOC assets held at First Islamic Investment Bank (FIIB), a bank linked to Babak Zanjani in Malaysia, to compensate Crescent.

 

The Crescent contract, signed in 2001 between NIOC and the UAE-based Crescent Petroleum for gas extraction from the Salman field, has been a source of costly disputes for over two decades, with Iran repeatedly facing damages and asset seizures abroad.

 

Following last year’s seizures of NIOC assets in London and Rotterdam, Crescent has now moved on to Malaysia, successfully claiming $2.305 billion.

 

The withdrawal starkly contradicts repeated public statements by former Oil Minister Bijan Zangeneh, who had long denied the existence of substantial funds belonging to Zanjani at FIIB. In June 2019, Zangeneh insisted that Zanjani still owed the ministry more than $2 billion (excluding interest), and questioned whether such funds existed at all. A month later, he again dismissed claims of frozen assets, saying: “There is no money for him to return in the first place.”

 

The Malaysian court’s enforcement, however, has proven otherwise: funds did exist in FIIB, but instead of bolstering Iran’s sanctioned economy, they have been drained to settle one of the most controversial contracts in the country’s oil and gas history.

 

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