While criminal proceedings and corruption in international arbitration have been much discussed in recent years, on the second day of Paris Arbitration Week, in the scenic 18th century Belgian Residence in Paris, Liedekerke organised a conference focusing on criminal liability, criminal threats and corruption allegations brought against arbitrators. The event was moderated by Bruno Hardy…
With 2018 drawing to a close, the UAE legislature has ushered in a long-awaited amendment to Art. 257 of the UAE Penal Code (see Decree issuing Federal Law No. (24) of 2018 amending certain provisions of the Federal Law no. (3) of 1987 issuing the Penal Code). Readers of Kluwer Blog will remember that that…
The Court of Appeal of Lithuania (“Court of Appeal”) in Prosecutor v. Public Entity “Pramogų sala”,1) Ruling of the Court of Appeal of Lithuania in case No. 1S-183-307/2018 dated 9 August 2018. has ruled on 9 August 2018 that claims for damages are not arbitrable in cases where the (disputable) loss is caused by a…
Investor-state tribunals frequently face allegations of economic crimes, especially in jurisdictions with a weak rule of law. For instance, the largest ever investor–State award of $50 billion in Yukos v Russian Federation, primarily concerned a criminal investigation of alleged tax evasion, fraud and embezzlement by what was then the largest Russian oil company. The tribunal…
Since the first application for provisional measures suspending criminal proceedings in Tokios Tokelés v. Ukraine (ICSID Case No. ARB/02/18, Order No. 3, 18 January 2005), the number of applications before ICSID tribunals for these types of measures has steadily increased. Recent applications have been widely commented on in the arbitration community, including in this blog….
The Twenty-eighth ITF Public Conference on Economic Crime and International Investment Law, hosted by the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL) on 22 May 2017, attracted 13 distinguished speakers and more than 100 participants for a day discussion on the issues of economic crime in investor-state arbitration. The conference provided a forum for…
Arbitral tribunals are increasingly faced with allegations of corruption. In these situations, arbitral proceedings and criminal investigations frequently go in tandem. Their findings overlap and may influence one another. Regardless of the many instances where corruption is alleged, there have been only a few investment cases in which a finding of corruption was actually…
In two recent cases, ICSID tribunals have been asked to consider applications for provisional measures relating to criminal proceedings initiated against the claimants. On 3 March 2016, the tribunal in Hydro S.r.l and others v. Republic of Albania (ICSID Case No. ARB/15/28) (the Hydro case) partly granted a request to recommend the suspension of criminal…
In 2013 the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin announced in his annual message to the Council of the Federation: “I would like to attract your attention to one more problem – the mechanisms of commercial dispute resolution are still not as good as the global practice is, and it is necessary to raise…
The recent Court of Appeal of England and Wales (“the Court”) judgment in the case of The London Steamship Owners’ Mutual Insurance Association Ltd v The Kingdom of Spain and The French State [2015] EWCA Civ 333 (“the Judgment”) will make interesting reading for those concerned with the subject of arbitration. The judgment rendered covers…
