On December 8, 2023, a Permanent Court of Arbitration tribunal composed of José Emilio Nunes Pinto (president), Guido Tawil, and Claus von Wobeser issued its final award in Mota Engil v. Paraguay (the “State” or “MOPC”)1)Mota-Engil Ingeniería y Construcción S.A. – Sucursal Paraguay v. Republic of Paraguay – Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Comunicaciones, PCA…
On November 12, 2021, the new arbitration rules (the “2021 Rules”) of Paraguayan Arbitration and Mediation Center (“CAMP” for its acronym in Spanish) –the main arbitration institution in Paraguay –came into effect. The 2021 Rules include new developments that modernize CAMP’s practice, especially with regards to international arbitration. In other cases, the new provisions reflect…
On March 19, 2019, an ICC tribunal seated in Paris and comprised of Claus von Wobeser (chairman), Francesca Mazza, and Horacio Grigera Naón, issued a procedural order staying the arbitration proceedings between Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (“PDVSA” for its acronym in Spanish, the Venezuelan state-owned oil company) and Petróleos Paraguayos (“PETROPAR” for its acronym in…
In a decision from June 6, 2018, the Third Chamber of the Paraguayan Court of Appeal (the “Court”) decided an annulment application, recognizing that issues of illegality and corruption are arbitrable, as long as such decision does not imply the imposition of sanctions, something that is left to the local criminal courts1)Recurso de Nulidad interpuesto…
In December 2015, I published an article examining whether there was a trend towards the elimination of umbrella clauses from investment agreements, be they bilateral, multilateral, or model investment treaties. By that time, model bilateral investment treaties (BITs) from the United States, France, Canada, Colombia, and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and many prominent…
On July 12, 2017, the Colombian Supreme Court issued a decision on the enforcement of the arbitral award rendered in the ICC case (No. 16088/JFR/CA) Tampico Beverages Inc. v. Productos Naturales de la Sabana S.A. Alquería, seated in Santiago de Chile. The decision provides for an interesting differentiation of the standard of review to be…
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…
Despite the heavy workload, practicing international arbitration can be fun; you are always challenged by disputes arising from a diversity of issues that test your ability to design the best strategy to achieve the best possible outcome for your client, combined with the complexity that a single case can reach and the many instances in…
On 15 September 2016, the Superior Justice Tribunal (“STJ” for its Brazilian acronym) of Brazil, in the case “Odontologia Noroeste LTDA v. GOU – Grupo Odontologico Unificado Franchising LTDA (REsp. N° 1.602.076 – SP)”, affirmed the invalidity of an arbitration clause contained in a franchising agreement based on its pathology for not complying with…
It has been some time since Judge Gunnar Lagergren – 52 years precisely – arbitrated a case (ICC No. 1110) whose underlying contract involved an agreement to pay bribes, and where he proffered a landmark award holding that “a case such as this, involving such gross violation of good morals and international public policy, can…
