Also reporting: Chuba Nwokedi (Association for International Arbitration), Mateusz Rys (University of Antwerp), Maryam Salehijam (Ghent University), Anmol Sheth (Association for International Arbitration), Arthur Van Den Bossche (University of Antwerp), Antonia Zydek (University of Strathclyde) It has long been said that investment treaty arbitration is at crossroads. This is probably most true within the European…
The first half of the year has been a rollercoaster when it comes to BITs and ISDS, in particular in Europe. Several developments at various levels can be distinguished with one common denominator: for better or for worse, the European Union (EU) and EU law have become one of the key drivers in shaping international…
The Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) is not an ordinary court but a political court, which means that it is strongly influenced in making its decisions by the political beliefs of the European Commission. The 6 March 2018 judgment of the CJEU’s Grand Chamber in Slovak Republic v. Achmea BV is a…
On 6 March 2018, the Court of Justice of the European Union (the “CJEU“) delivered its ruling in the case of Slovak Republic v Achmea (“Achmea“), holding that the investor-state arbitration provisions in a bilateral investment treaty (“BIT“) between the Netherlands and the Slovak Republic are invalid, as they are incompatible with EU law. In…
On March 6, 2018, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) in its 12-page judgment backed the Commission in its grid to finally scrap the intra-EU BITs and defied Advocate General’s attempt to preserve the system. The purpose of this note is to concisely analyze this far-reaching judgment of the CJEU against the…
Many arbitration lawyers’ initial reaction to the CJEU’s Achmea judgment resembles the first three of the famous “five stages of grief” (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance). Some deny Achmea’s relevance under international law, others angrily dismiss it as unreasoned and politically motivated, while many attempts to “bargain” a way out for intra-EU arbitrations under…
The Achmea judgment, passed on the 6th of March 2018, and addressed in the Kluwer blog posts available here and here, prompted us to think about what could be the way forward for an effective investment and investor protection within the EU. Now that the CJEU decided that investment treaty arbitration based on intra-EU BITs…
Introduction In a much anticipated judgment in Slovak Republic v. Achmea B.V. (Case C-284/16), the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) ruled yesterday that the arbitration clause contained in Article 8 of the 1991 Netherlands-Slovakia BIT (the “BIT”) has an adverse effect on the autonomy of EU law, and is therefore incompatible with…
The European Commission (“EC”) has recently taken another step in its efforts to replace the traditional investor-state-dispute-settlement (“ISDS”) mechanism which underlies the approximately 1,400 bilateral investment agreements in force between EU Member States and third countries. On 13 September 2017, the EC issued, based on Article 218(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the…
On his last day in office, former EU Trade Commissioner De Gucht sent the request for an opinion from the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) aiming to get a seal of approval from the CJEU that the EU-SING FTA and all future EU trade and investment treaties fall completely within the EU’s exclusive…
The recent developments concerning the signature of the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the EU have illustrated the paralysis and inability of the EU and its Member States to deliver economic prosperity and create jobs – which used to be one of the very reasons for establishing the EU and giving it…
On a reference from the Cour d’Appel de Paris, A.G. Wathelet upholds the primacy of an arbitral award as compatible with Art.101 TFEU in Genentech, Inc. v Hoechst GmbH / Sanofi-Aventis GmbH, Case C-567/14 (Opinion of Advocate General Wathelet: 17 March 2016). 1. The Facts 1.1 The Patent License In 1992 a predecessor of Hoechst/Sanofi-Aventis…
It is fair to say that arbitration is already a widespread dispute mechanism in Portugal, broadly used not only for commercial disputes but also for disputes in other areas such as, for example, consumer, administrative and tax disputes. As for intellectual property, the possibility of submitting disputes to arbitration has been a reality in Portugal…
A ruling of the Austrian Supreme Court, the Oberste Gerichtshof in Vienna, Austria, of earlier this year (see ruling of 18 February 2015, 2 Ob 22/14w) raises anew the much debated question of the type and intensity of supervisory court review of European Union (EU) competition law awards. Readers may recall that EU competition law…
This is the second part of a post related to arbitration and antitrust follow-on damages claims in Europe. Part 1, which addressed problems of jurisdiction ratione materiae that arise in relation to follow-on damages claims, is accessible here. Part 2 of this commentary addresses additional challenges and opportunities that warrant attention when the possibility of…
This post, which will be presented in two parts, proposes to pick-up on a subject addressed in an earlier commentary posted by R. Bellinghausen and J. Grothaus regarding the CJEU’s decision in CDC v. Akzo Nobel et al [See Judgment C-352/13]. As highlighted in the earlier post, the CJEU’s recent decision raises a number of questions…
On 21 May 2015, the CJEU rendered a landmark decision regarding questions of jurisdiction under the Brussels I Regulation (recast as Regulation 1215/2012, previously Regulation 44/2001) in the case of cartel damage proceedings. We may be grappling with this decision for a long time albeit it does not explicitly address arbitration. The CJEU’s judgment brings…
On 25 March 2015 the Court of Cassation of France handed down a new decision dealing with the so called “unilateral”, “optional”, “hybrid”, and “asymmetrical” jurisdiction clauses giving choice to one contractual party where to bring action against the other. Earlier in 2012, the same court issued the much discussed Rothschild decision which stated that…
On 13 May 2015, the CJEU handed down judgment in Gazprom (C-536/13). As readers will recall, the case concerns whether an EU court must refuse to give effect to an anti-suit award granted by an EU seated arbitral tribunal on the basis that such a measure is incompatible with EU Regulation 44/2001 (the “Brussels I…
