Cross-Border
Legal Counsel in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan is a civil-law jurisdiction with codified private and procedural law. A notable exception is the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC), which operates a common-law-based legal framework and its own court and arbitration centre, designed to offer international investors a familiar common-law environment within Kazakhstan.
For foreign parties, the AIFC framework can be significant — it offers common-law procedure and an arbitration centre — while matters outside it fall under the civil-law system. Cross-border enforceability depends on asset location and structuring, and our work focuses on the cross-border dimension and coordination, including use of the AIFC where appropriate.

For arbitral awards, Kazakhstan is a party to the New York Convention, and recognition and enforcement of foreign awards proceed under the Convention's framework. In our experience, a New York Convention award is generally a more reliable basis for enforcement against assets in the region than reliance on a foreign court judgment, whose recognition depends on treaty relationships or reciprocity and can be less predictable.
For foreign court judgments, recognition in Kazakhstan depends on applicable bilateral or multilateral treaty arrangements and on reciprocity, and is assessed against local public-policy requirements. This makes a well-structured arbitration clause, providing for a Convention award, the more enforceable choice in most cross-border contracts with a Kazakhstan counterparty.
The Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC) additionally provides a common-law-based court and arbitration centre whose framework may offer routes relevant to certain matters, which we assess where applicable.
The practical work is choosing the enforceable route, identifying assets, and — critically for the region — coordinating the Kazakhstan element with parallel action in the other jurisdictions, frequently EU holding jurisdictions such as Cyprus or the Baltics, where a debtor's assets are often layered. This coordination is the core of our CIS Region practice.

Kazakhstan is a New York Convention party, and international arbitration in neutral seats is common for cross-border commercial disputes. The AIFC operates its own court and an international arbitration centre under a common-law-based framework, which can be a relevant forum for international investors. An enforceable award and a suitable forum are central to how such matters are structured.
Our focus is the enforcement and recovery strategy across the jurisdictions where assets sit, including assessment of the AIFC framework where relevant.

Matters in the region are coordinated through our CIS Region desk, which works in Russian and understands the layered holding structures — frequently routed through EU jurisdictions such as Cyprus and the Baltics — that internationally mobile principals from the region commonly use. We treat the local element as one node in a coordinated recovery map rather than a standalone proceeding.

Kazakhstan combines a civil-law system with the distinctive common-law-based AIFC framework, and its energy and resources economy gives many matters a sectoral dimension. VLO's CIS Region desk combines Russian-language capacity and regional familiarity, coordinating the Kazakh element — including the AIFC where relevant — with proceedings elsewhere.
For clients, this means a strategy focused on where assets and outcomes can actually be reached, including use of the AIFC framework where advantageous, under one partner, with discretion.