On June 24, 2024, the European Union (“EU”) has introduced Council Regulation 2024/1745 which imposes the 14th package of sanctions against Russia, intensifying its response to Russia’s continued aggression in Ukraine. Among the key legal innovations in this package are Articles 11a and 11b, which provide EU operators with two distinct legal bases to seek…
On 25 April 2024, the European Federation for Investment Law and Arbitration (“EFILA”) held its 9th Annual Conference at Clifford Chance in Frankfurt. The conference was opened by the Chair of the Executive Board of EFILA, Mirjam van de Hel (NautaDutilh) who underscored the importance of discussing the impact of geopolitical uncertainties on international arbitration…
The Brussels first instance court attracted significant attention in 2022 by deciding to set aside an UNCITRAL award regarding a claim brought against the Republic of Poland under the US-Poland bilateral investment treaty (“US-Poland BIT”). This was the first time we had seen a Belgian court set aside an investment treaty award. The first instance…
India ADR Week (“IAW“) 2023 was hosted by the Mumbai Centre for International Arbitration (“MCIA“) across three cities – Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai. Gathering over 700 attendees from a cross-section of the arbitration community, IAW featured more than 40 events over six days in a series of in-person and virtual panels. The breadth and diversity…
In 2013, Deutsche Telekom AG (“DT”), a German corporation, commenced an UNCITRAL arbitration in Switzerland under the Germany-India BIT claiming that India had (amongst other things) breached the fair and equitable treatment (“FET”) standard. In the arbitration, India raised various jurisdictional objections, which the Tribunal rejected in an Interim Award issued on 13 December 2017….
The Republic of Türkiye is a strategic market which straddles Europe and Asia, providing an intersection of various cultures, languages, and religions. Türkiye is also well-versed in foreign investment, both inward and outward, in large part due to its geographical location and long history. Indeed approximately one-fifth of economic activity in Türkiye depends on foreign…
On 3 February 2023, Colombia and Venezuela entered into an Agreement for the Reciprocal Promotion and Protection of Investments (“Treaty”), with the objective of “incrementing the flow of transborder direct investment.” Both states are still to complete the ratification procedure for the Treaty to enter into force. This is an interesting development, especially considering the…
On January 25, 2023 the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) issued the preliminary decision in the case Ukraine and The Netherlands v. Russia where it clearly stated that certain “areas [of Ukraine] were, from 11 May 2014 and subsequently, under the effective control of the Russian Federation” (para. 695). This…
When it comes to consent to the jurisdiction of international courts and tribunals, its understanding and interpretation raise a fundamental question – do we really know what it means? In this blog post, it will be demonstrated that there are a number of uncertainties around the notion of consent in investment arbitration. The theoretical underpinnings…
India’s Parliamentary Committee on External Affairs (the “PCEA”) recently submitted two reports to the Parliament relating to bilateral investment treaties (“BITs”). The first report –submitted in December 2021 – contained a broad review of India’s engagement with BITs and made several recommendations. The second report – submitted in July 2022 – took note of the…
The Spanish Cases Saga illustrates the arduous task of balancing the host state’s right to regulate and an investor’s economic interests. This post summarizes the tribunal’s reasoning in Novenergia v. Spain and Stadtwerke München v. Spain regarding FET breaches in the energy sector. The post argues that the latter case adopts a clearer analysis of…
State parties’ “mutual actions” over a treaty – including interventions such as interpretation, modification and termination – have flourished in recent investment treaty practice. This trend brings to the fore the question of whether there are any limits to such actions, particularly due to the involvement of non-State entities, such as investors and arbitral tribunals….
The Second Edition of the Washington Arbitration Week took place from 29 November to 3 December 2021, hosting 16 panels, including two hybrid panels with both in-person and virtual attendees. This post highlights the panel on ‘Investment Treaty Arbitration in the Digital Era: Using BITs to protect Cryptocurrency Investments?’ Cristen Bauer (U.S. Department of Commerce)…
On January 20, 2022, ICSID submitted its amended rules to the Administrative Council for a vote, marking the end of the five-year-old process of modernizing the ICSID Rules. ICSID members are expected to cast a vote on the amended rules by March 21, 2022, and if approved, the rules will enter into force on July…
Nearly 30 years have passed since world leaders signed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (“UNFCCC”), agreeing to combat “dangerous human interference with the climate system.” For many of those years, nobody seemed to take that commitment very seriously. But things look different now: climate law has hit its stride. At COP26 in November…
This post deals with the conceptual underpinnings and theoretical justification for the practice of counterclaims in investment arbitration. First, it is important to delineate this post from an analysis of counterclaims case-law in investment arbitration, as ample accounts of the counterclaim debate in practice can be found here, here, and here. Equally, this post does…
Debates about the fragmentation of international law and the sometimes conflicting relationship between a state’s and investor’s obligations under international investment law (“IIL”), on the one hand, and public international law and domestic law, on the other, have gained renewed relevance for investment arbitration. Issues related to the interactions between these regimes have featured in…
Bilateral investment treaties depend upon international arbitration as the mechanism to resolve disputes between sovereign states and investors. Although offering obvious advantages over litigation before national courts, investors are not immune from the risk of proceedings becoming destabilized by external factors. A recent example involved Air Canada, the country’s flag carrier, and the Bolivarian Republic…
This post shares a development of potential significance, i.e., the drafting of the Sustainable Investment Facilitation & Cooperation Agreement (SIFCA), a next-generation model bilateral investment treaty (BIT) developed for The Gambia, a sovereign State in West Africa and one of the world’s least developed countries (LDCs). This post continues the discussion raised in January 2021,…
International arbitration is changing at a fast pace, and opportunities arise every day in this field. In this context, on May 25, 2021, Young Arbitral Women Practitioners, Holland & Knight, and Rising Arbitrators Initiative co-hosted a webinar to discuss emerging fields of practice for arbitration lawyers. This post offers an overview of the variety of…
The “2019 in Review: India” started with a quote from Jeff Bezos that the 21st century belongs to India. Little did we know then that, one year later, Jeff Bezos’ Amazon would be fighting tooth and nail in a SIAC arbitration and related litigation in the Indian courts to claim a share of the burgeoning…
In the early 2000s, several European states introduced generous incentive programs to attract investors to renewable energy, triggering an investment boom. In the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008, however, the incentive payments put a strain on regulators. The subsequent changes to the regulations of the renewable energy sector implemented by Spain, Italy,…
It will come as no surprise to the readers of this blog that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on international arbitration (see blog coverage here). In this post, we take a look back at 2020 to consider the intersection of the pandemic, investment, and human rights. In February 2020, one of…
In 2019, we were wondering whether winter had come to Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), bringing with it a decline in the negotiation and conclusion of bilateral investment treaties. Looking back on 2020, we are left asking ourselves a similar question. This post will examine the year’s major institutional developments and their effects on ISDS both…
