ICSID Arbitration

ICSID Arbitration, ICSID Convention, International Court of Justice, Investment Arbitration, Precedent, Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties

(Tribe Arbitration and St Mary's University)/ /2 Comments

It is well settled that there is no rule of precedent in investment arbitration and arbitrators are not bound by decisions rendered by previous tribunals. Nevertheless, investment arbitration practice shows that previous decisions are often observed and followed. Disputing parties and arbitrators devote significant attention to previous decisions and on several occasions arbitral tribunals rely…

Fair and Equitable Treatment, ICSID Arbitration, ICSID Convention

(Clyde _ Co. LLP)/ /Leave a comment
Clyde & Co.

The case of Perenco Ecuador Limited v Republic of Ecuador, ICSID Case No. ARB/08/6 (Decision, 12 September 2014), is one of a number of investor-state disputes to arise from the Ecuadoran government’s policies on the so-called “extraordinary income” of oil companies operating in its territory in the mid to late 2000s. Keen followers of international…

Argentina, BIT, Consent, ICSID Arbitration, ICSID Convention, Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties

(University of Missouri School of Law)/ /Leave a comment
Institute for Transnational Arbitration (ITA)

On November 17, 2014, the tribunal in Alemanni v. Argentine Republic issued its long-anticipated decision on jurisdiction and admissibility. Alemanni is the third in a series of large-scale arbitrations arising out of Argentina’s default on its sovereign debt, and the most recent decision bears some resemblance to the preliminary awards rendered in the other two…

Costs, Costs in arbitral proceedings, ICSID Arbitration, ICSID Convention, UNCITRAL

(International Moot Court Competition Association (IMCCA))/ /Leave a comment

and Oleg Temnikov 1. Approaches to cost allocation There are, generally, two approaches to costs allocation (“CA”), namely: (1) pay your own way (“PYOWA”) whereby the parties share the costs of the proceedings and bear their own legal costs; (2) loser pays or also called “costs follow the event” approach (“CFTEA”) under which the losing…

Arbitration, BIT, Canada, Foreign Investment Law, ICSID Arbitration, ICSID Convention, Investment Arbitration, Middle East, Uncategorized, United Arab Emirates

(Blanke Arbitration LLC)/ /Leave a comment

In an Award on Jurisdiction rendered earlier this year under the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States (the “ICSID Convention”) in ICSID Case No. ARB/11/7 – National Gas S.A.E. v. Arab Republic of Egypt (a copy of which is electronically available on the official Investment Treaty Arbitration…

ICSID Arbitration, ICSID Convention, Investment, Investment agreements, Investment Arbitration, Investment protection, Investor

(Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law)/ /4 Comments

Paraphrasing Churchill, investment arbitration is the worst form of foreign investment dispute resolution, except for all the others. Post-Suez, governments are more civilised than to employ gunboat diplomacy for their own investors, and local courts are inherently partial. Achieving neutrality is the objective, and the only means: investment arbitration. This is the conventional wisdom for…

ICSID Arbitration, ICSID Convention, International Court of Justice, Investment, Investment agreements, Investment Arbitration, Investment protection, Investor, Treaty, Treaty Interpretation, Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties

(Tribe Arbitration and St Mary's University)/ /Leave a comment

One of the recurrent controversial issues in the investment arbitration practice relates to the application of the general rule of treaty interpretation of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties in the interpretation of the provisions of the ICSID Convention and of investment treaties in general. Thomas Wälde in one of his last writings…

ICSID Arbitration, ILC Articles on State Responsibility, Investment, Investment Arbitration, Investment protection, Investor, Moral Damages

(University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law)/ /Leave a comment
Institute for Transnational Arbitration (ITA)

Let’s get this straight: When awarded to persons, including foreign investors, moral damages are compensatory in nature. They are not discretionary. They are not symbolic. They are not exemplary. They are not punitive. Rather, as the commentary to the ILC Draft Articles 36 and 37 on State Responsibility notes, “[c]ompensable personal injury encompasses not only…

Costs, ICSID Arbitration, ICSID Convention, Security for Costs, Third party funding

(González-Bueno & Asociados)/ /1 Comment

and Laura Lozano, González-Bueno & Asociados It is known that third party funding has become one of the hot topics in the international arbitration arena. Indeed, it is not the first time this blog deals with the matter. Amongst others, Munir Maniruzzaman and Lisa Bench Nieuwveld have already explored this tool that provides the necessary…

ICSID Arbitration, ICSID Convention, State Agency, State entity

(International Moot Court Competition Association (IMCCA))/ /Leave a comment

and Oleg Temnikov Foreword Designation by a State of a constituent subdivision or agency provided for in Article 25, paragraphs 1 and 3, of the ICSID Convention has recently sparked a debate particularly in terms of the manner in which the designation is made and communicated to the Center. This is the subject of the…

Appointment of arbitrators, Arbitrators, ICSID Arbitration, ICSID Convention

(D'Empaire Reyna, Abogados)/ /2 Comments

The very nature of an arbitrator requires that she or he be imbued with the principles of independence and impartiality, qualities that should never be doubted. Nonetheless, there has recently been an increased number of challenges to arbitrators in Investment Arbitrations subject to the procedures of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (the…

ICSID Arbitration, ICSID Convention, Investment, Investment agreements, Investment Arbitration, Investment protection, Investor, Latin America

(Pinheiro Neto Advogados)/ /Leave a comment

Investment arbitration is a crucial and sensitive dispute-resolution method, notably because the treatment given to foreign investment matters may materially affect the economic and social realities of a country or region, particularly those in development. In the last decade, however, as already reported and addressed in this blog by, among many others, Vanessa Giraud and…

ICSID Arbitration, Investment Arbitration, Latin America

(González-Bueno & Asociados)/ /Leave a comment

By Carlos González–Bueno and Laura Lozano, González-Bueno & Asociados, Madrid. It is commonly understood that Latin American countries have played an important dominant role as respondents in ICSID cases. This has led to the withdrawal from the ICSID Convention by several Latin American countries. Interestingly, however, according to recent ICSID statistics, cases filed against Latin…

Arbitrator Challenges, Bias, ICSID Arbitration, ICSID Convention

(Richmond School of Law)/ /Leave a comment
Institute for Transnational Arbitration (ITA)

The ICSID Convention threshold for arbitrators’ challenges, upholding challenges only if arbitrators exhibit a manifest lack of the qualities required to sit as arbitrators (Art. 57 ICSID Convention), has in the past been criticized as being too strict. Recently, however, few decisions, discussed in this post, seem to show that the ICSID “manifest” threshold is…

Annulment, ICSID Arbitration, ICSID Convention, Investment, Investment Arbitration, Investment protection, Investor

(International Moot Court Competition Association (IMCCA))/ /7 Comments

and Oleg Temnikov Foreword The recent decision on preliminary objections, dated 17 January 2014, against the application for annulment in Elsamex S.A. v. Honduras (ARB/09/4) brought renewed interest in the procedure for summary dismissal of unmeritorious claims under Rule 41(5) of the ICSID Arbitration Rules. The present post examines shortly this procedure as well as…

ICC Arbitration, ICSID Arbitration, International arbitration, LCIA Arbitration, Tribunal Secretary

(White & Case LLP)/ /1 Comment
White & Case

By Michael Polkinghorne & Charles B. Rosenberg, White & Case LLP The role of the tribunal secretary in international arbitration has been called an “enormously grey area” that has been subject to instances of “abuse.” With concerns of the secretary going beyond his or her position as an assistant to the tribunal and becoming a…