Dutch state can claim €123 mil. from firm owned by Uzbekistan leader's daughter

The Netherlands can claim 123 million euros in bribe money from the company owned by Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of Uzbekistan's president. This is because many of the bribes paid by the company, called Takilant, was paid by telecommunications companies in the Netherlands, Het Parool reports. On Wendesday Takilant was sentenced to a fine of 1.5 million euros by the court in Amsterdam for forgery and passive official bribery, or accepting bribes. The 123 million euros the Netherlands can claim, is part of hundreds of millions of euros in bribes the Gibraltar company amassed. Between 2006 and 2011 Netherlands-based telecoms Vimpelcom and TeliaSonera made payments to Karimova through her company in an attempt to gain access to the lucrative Uzbek telecom market, according to the newspaper. The court described Takilant - which traded in influence instead of actual business as forged documents tried to suggest - as "a way of doing business that is socially extremely destabilizing". The Dutch judge could rule in Takilant's case because part of the bribes were paid in the Netherlands. The Public Prosecutor wanted to claim over 310 million euros, but the judge ruled on a lower amount. This is because Takilant was acquitted on parts of the indictment and some bribe payments happened abroad, which means the Dutch judge could not rule on it, according to Het Parool. This is the second big win for the Netherlands in this corruption case. Earlier this year a Russian telecom company paid about 400 million euros to the Netherlands in a settlement to avoid prosecution in this case.