The 14 July 2010 Award in Saba Fakes v. Turkey (Fakes) is notable because it expressly disapproves of the approach taken by the Tribunal in Phoenix Action v. Czech Republic, which found in its 15 April 2009 Award that good faith and legality are jurisdictional requirements for access to ICSID arbitration. Fakes is a welcome addition to…
Earlier today, an ad-hoc annulment committee at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) completely annulled a 2007 arbitral award that had been rendered in favour of US energy company, Sempra Energy International. The striking development serves to nullify a US $128 Million (plus interest) award wherein a panel of ICSID arbitrators had…
27 June 2010 marks the 20th anniversary of investment treaty jurisprudence. On 27 June 1990, the tribunal in Asian Agricultural Products Ltd. v. Sri Lanka (ICSID Case No. ARB/87/3) (AAPL) dispatched its final award to the parties. The AAPL tribunal (Dr. Ahmed Sadek El-Kosheri (President), Professor Berthold Goldman and Dr. Samuel Asante) was the first…
By the end of the second round of negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in San Francisco June 14-18 some observers were concerned that the lack of inter-agency consensus on the protection of foreign investment risks slowing the negotiation of investment issues in the TPP context. If there is no internal U.S. agreement by the…
