In furtherance of European and national policy directives, Spain enacted in the early years of this century a series of decrees to regulate the production of electricity from renewable sources and provide incentives to producers. In particular, by Royal Decree 661/2007, a generous, production-based remuneration subsidy in the form of a feed-in-tariff (FIT) was put…
A previous post analyzed the application of the fair and equitable treatment (“FET”) and legitimate expectations in the recent award in Eiser Infrastructure Ltd. v. Spain (ICSID Case No. ARB/13/36), the first ICSID case to reach a final award related to the measures Spain applied to roll-back certain incentives and benefits offered to promote investment…
On May 4, 2017 the third final award on the Spanish energy arbitration saga was unveiled. After two wins against Charanne and Isolux Infrastructure (both SCC), this time the foreign investors scored a point, leaving the overall score table at 2-1. In Eiser, the first ICSID case to reach a final award related to the…
There has been much recent judicial activism in Spain in arbitration matters. Although the grounds for annulment of an arbitral award are limited in Spanish Arbitration Law (Article 41) and reflect the UNCITRAL Model Law standards, the volume of recent annulment decisions and the array of issues considered have been noteworthy. The most active court…
On 4 April 2017, the Madrid High Court of Justice (“TSJM”), the court in Spain that handles appeals for the annulment of awards, issued two decisions – Case numbers 43/2016 and 63/2016 – in which it confirms the doctrine already advanced by means of a previous judgment rendered by the same court (see Judgment of…
The obligation for an arbitral tribunal to deliberate before rendering an award is at the heart of the arbitral process. In fact, parties typically agree to submit their disputes to a panel of three arbitrators for the purpose of ensuring objectivity, well thought decisions and equal treatment. Deliberation is so fundamental to the arbitral procedure…
A July 2015 decision of the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid (Tribunal Superior de Justicia), the competent court to decide on the setting aside of an award when the seat of the arbitration is Madrid, declared non-arbitrable a controversy between two multinational Spanish operators in the natural gas sector. The dispute arose over the…
The facts of the situation are simple: the claimant goes to the domestic courts and the defendant argues that there is an arbitral agreement. The court judge upholds the jurisdictional objection and refers the parties to arbitration but, once the arbitration proceedings are over, the claimant party appeals to have the award annulled on the…
