by Catherine H. Gibson (Assistant Editor for North America) The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement (official text here) is one in a series of significant investment agreements that the United States will negotiate in the coming months and years – next in line are the Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership (TTIP) Agreement and the United States-China bilateral…

by Nahila Cortes, American University Washington College of Law Much is being said about the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (“TPP”), the landmark free trade agreement signed by twelve States accounting for 40% of the world trade. Chapter 9, the investment chapter, is an important provision which applies to investors (i.e. a national or company of a…

by Esmé Shirlow (Assistant Editor for Australia & New Zealand)   Gabriele Ruscalla has recently observed that “transparency has become a fundamental principle in international adjudication”. The transparency paradigms governing different types of international adjudication are, however, far from uniform. Discussions of transparency in international arbitration typically begin, for example, from a distinction between commercial and investment treaty disputes. As Cristoffer Nyegaard Mollestad explains…

Dear Readers, you may have noticed the dearth of recent posts, for which we make no excuses. It is late summer for the northern hemisphere contributors. At this point, most of us are lingering poolside at the Kluwer International Arbitration Resort and Amusement Park, sipping procedural cocktails in the waning light as the children take…

On 24 June 2015, the Australian Productivity Commission released its eighteenth Trade and Assistance Review 2013-14. The Commission is an independent research and advisory body, with statutory authority to report annually on the economic impacts of Australia’s international trade policy. As readers of this blog may recall, in previous years the Commission’s Review has influenced…

Keeping abreast of Australia’s stance on ISDS can be a confusing exercise. Australia’s approach to investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) continues to be hotly debated in the wake of recent revelations by Wikileaks that the investment chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is likely to include ISDS provisions. The Australian government’s stance on ISDS has undergone…

The question of what constitutes an “arbitration” is unlikely to be one that arbitral practitioners have cause to ponder on a daily basis. In fact, such a question might appear at first to be purely theoretical or academic. A recent case (ASADA v 34 Players) from the Victorian Supreme Court in Australia, however, shows the…

This article is published as a result of the cooperation agreement between  Kluwer Arbitration Blog and ArbitralWomen.  The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and should not be regarded as representative of, or binding upon ArbitralWomen and/or the author’s law firm. In 2010 Australia amended its International Arbitration Act (Cth) 1974 (IAA)…

Indonesia is not the only Asia-Pacific nation that is reassessing investment treaties containing provisions on Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS, especially arbitration). India announced a review in 2013, partly in the wake of the successful claim from an Australian mining investor, although the impact in practice is hard to discern or predict – especially under the…

Armada (Singapore) Pte Ltd (Under Judicial Management) v Gujarat NRE Coke Limited [2014] FCA 636 Justice Foster of the Federal Court of Australia handed down judgment on 17 June 2014 in an application for the enforcement of three foreign arbitral awards. The key issue for determination before the court was whether the applicant, Armada (Singapore)…

Authors: Geoff Hansen, Partner and Jennifer Galatas, Senior Associate1)The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Nuwan Dias in preparing this article. 1. Introduction – APRAG and Beyond On 27 to 28 March 2014, international dispute experts converged on Melbourne, Australia to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Asia-Pacific Regional Arbitration Group (APRAG) Conference. APRAG is…

The Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia (the Court) recently upheld a decision enforcing an arbitral award made by three London arbitrators (Gujarat NRE Coke Limited v. Coeclerici Asia (Pte) Ltd [2013] FCAFC 109). The Court dismissed the appeal confirming that the arbitrators did not deny the appellants procedural fairness and did not…