Former Kazatomprom Chief Commercial Officer Askar Batyrbayev was sentenced by an Astana court to 4.5 years in a medium-security penal colony for abuse of office for “deals detrimental to the state.”
Between January and December 2021, he reportedly negotiated 13 uranium-concentrate supply contracts with foreign firms—including Yellow Cake, Urenco and CNNC—at prices roughly 5% below prevailing spot rates and, in several cases, past deadline, breaching the company’s pricing methodology and causing a 20.1 billion-tenge loss to the Samruk-Kazyna sovereign wealth fund.
He was arrested by state law enforcement in July 2024.
Prosecutors allege Batyrbayev aimed to exceed annual performance targets: the discounted sales boosted him to 120% of his KPI plan, earning a 54 million-tenge bonus in May 2022—approximately 9 million tenge of which derived directly from the underpriced contracts.
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The court has ordered him to return the full bonus and to compensate Samruk-Kazyna for the entire 20.1 billion shortfall.
Batyrbayev denied wrongdoing, arguing that “pricing was approved at board level and discounts were agreed in accordance with procedure,” based on weekly or monthly spot-price quotations.
Former Kazatomprom CEO Galymzhan Pirmatov—who resigned in August 2021—testified that he neither participated in negotiations nor knew of any unauthorized discounts, and described board meetings as “procedural formalities.” The court, however, found no documentary or video evidence of any board discussion or consent to the discounts.
In addition to Batyrbayev’s sentence, the court has moved to revoke his state award issued for distinguished service, and issued a private ruling reprimanding Kazatomprom’s management for “lack of control and prevention of corruption risks in working with personnel.”
Batyrbayev, who worked at Kazatomprom from 2006 to 2023, played a key role in the company’s efforts to increase transparency and strengthen relationships with Western fuel buyers following its initial public offering.
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