Entrepreneur Maksim Poletaev and Solfy RUS LLC have initiated arbitration proceedings against Uzbekistan at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). The request for arbitration was registered on September 23.
According to the case details, the claimants are Maksim Vladimirovich Poletaev, a Russian entrepreneur and former First Deputy Chairman of the Management Board of Sberbank, and Solfy RUS LLC, registered as a Russian company. The respondent is the Republic of Uzbekistan.
ICSID identifies the subject matter of the dispute as a consumer finance platform, while the economic sector is listed as finance. The proceedings are based on the intergovernmental agreement between Uzbekistan and Russia on the promotion and mutual protection of investments, signed in April 2013 and which entered into force on June 17 of the same year. The case is being considered under the ICSID Additional Facility Arbitration Rules.
The proceedings are currently ongoing. According to the ICSID case details, the Acting Secretary-General registered the request for the institution of arbitration proceedings on September 23.
Poletaev and Solfy are represented by Amsterdam & Partners LLP and E L W I, while Uzbekistan is represented by the Ministry of Justice.
In early September, Amsterdam & Partners announced that it had filed an arbitration claim, stating that Solfy and Poletaev are seeking more than $100 million in compensation from Uzbekistan. The law firm also said the request includes a demand for urgent interim measures concerning the criminal case against Solfy director Uktam Khasanov and his detention.
The Solfy case
The conflict between Solfy and the National Bank of Uzbekistan (NBU) publicly escalated in spring 2026. Solfy entered the Uzbek market in 2020 in partnership with NBU. The parties launched a project to issue installment cards that allowed customers to purchase goods interest-free for up to 12 months.
The relationship between the partners subsequently deteriorated and led to legal disputes. In December 2024, the Tashkent Interdistrict Economic Court upheld a claim filed by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry on behalf of NBU against Solfy SA seeking termination of the agreement and recovery of debt. The company was ordered to pay 17.33 billion soums. In February 2025, the appellate court upheld the decision.
In May 2025, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, acting on behalf of NBU, filed another claim against Solfy SA. The court partially upheld the claims and ordered the company to pay 1.76 billion soums in principal debt and 2.2 billion soums in penalties.
Thus, according to the published court decisions, the total amount recovered from Solfy in favor of NBU amounted to 21.32 billion soums.
Meanwhile, criminal proceedings were launched against Uktam Khasanov, the general director of Solfy’s Uzbek subsidiary, and he was detained on March 27, 2026. Representatives of Poletaev and Solfy claimed that the criminal prosecution was linked to the commercial dispute with NBU. NBU itself said it considered it inappropriate to comment on the allegations until negotiations and related legal proceedings had been completed.
In April, Amsterdam & Partners, the legal counsel for Poletaev and Solfy, said it intended to initiate international arbitration proceedings. A Spot analysis also cited the position of Robert Amsterdam, who said an arbitration claim was being prepared for ICSID and estimated the potential amount of the claims at between $45 million and $55 million.
More details on the cooperation between NBU and Solfy, the court proceedings, the criminal case against Uktam Khasanov and the positions of the parties are available in Spot’s previously published article.
The English version of this material was generated with the assistance of AI translation tools and may differ slightly from the original text.
