A specialized court in Almaty has upheld a lawsuit filed by the environmental prosecutor's office and ordered that a 33.98% stake in JSC Tarty be returned to state ownership. The ruling brings an end to a long-running dispute over the privatization of the city's key waste operator, according to infohub.kz.
The case dates back to 2017, when the city administration (akimat) transferred the construction project for a waste sorting complex to a private consortium under a public-private partnership (PPP) agreement. As part of the deal, the state's stake in the enterprise passed to investors, but the supervisory authority later identified violations.
In particular, prosecutors proved that in October 2017, 34% of the shares were sold at a significantly undervalued price. Furthermore, in 2022–2023, the prosecutor's office challenged the PPP contract due to violations of antimonopoly legislation and blocked the reorganization of JSC Tarty into an LLP.
In a ruling on July 30, the court fully satisfied the prosecutor's demands and ordered the return of the 33.98% stake to municipal ownership.
Tarty has been operating since 1999 and holds a key position in Almaty's waste collection and disposal market. In 2018, investors launched a sorting complex with a capacity of 550,000 tons of waste per year under the project.
The Prosecutor General's Office of Kazakhstan noted that the court's decision on the return of the stake has not yet entered into legal force.