To enforce arbitral awards against recalcitrant sovereign debtors, creditors have occasionally resorted to searching for assets embezzled from sovereigns and seeking to attach them. But two recent cases – Commissions Import Export SA v. Republic of the Congo, et al. and Casa Express Corp. v. Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela – show that any creditors adopting…
On March 18, 2025, the Office of the Paraguayan Presidency’s Legal Counsel submitted to the Paraguayan Arbitration and Mediation Center (the “Center”) its draft to modernize Law No. 1879/2002, the Paraguayan Arbitration Act (the “Project”), following a recent trend in other jurisdictions amending their arbitration legislation (e.g., France, the UK, and Germany). The Center has…
On 3 January 2025, the Constitutional Court of Indonesia (“Constitutional Court”) issued Decision No. 100/PUU-XXII/2024 (“Decision 100”) which declared certain wording in Law No. 30 of 1999 concerning Arbitration and Alternative Dispute Resolution (“Arbitration Law”) to be unconstitutional. This post examines how Decision 100 reduces ambiguity regarding the nationality of awards and minimizes situations where…
In February 2025, the Court of Appeal of England & Wales unanimously dismissed Russia’s appeal against the English High Court’s decision that issue estoppel applies to its determination of the applicability of exceptions to state immunity under the State Immunity Act 1978 (“Immunity Act”) (“CoA Decision”). The case forms part of long-running, multi-jurisdictional proceedings surrounding…
In January 2025, a Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia (“Full Court”) upheld a claim by the Republic of India (“India”) to foreign state immunity from proceedings brought by various Mauritian entities (the “Investors”) to enforce an arbitral award in the Australian courts. The Full Court upheld immunity on the basis of India’s…
The Antrix-Devas saga continues to present twists and turns (see previous coverage on the Blog here, here and here). The latest is the recent decision of the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia (the “Full Court”) in Republic of India v. CCDM Holdings, LLC & Ors. [2025] FCAFC 2. This decision concerned the…
On January 30, 2025, the Constitutional Court of Chile issued a decision regarding a request for inapplicability due to the unconstitutionality of certain provisions of Law No. 19,971 on International Commercial Arbitration (“Law No. 19,971” or “International Commercial Arbitration Law”).1)Case Nº 15.144-2024, “Requerimiento de inaplicabilidad por inconstitucionalidad respecto de la expresión ‘sólo’, contenida en los…
Is there a statute of limitations applicable in France to requests for enforcement of foreign arbitral awards? On 10 December 2024, the Versailles Court of Appeal (the “Court”) responded in the affirmative and ruled that a request was time barred for having been filed more than 5 years after the issuance of the award (Case…
In SpaceCom v Wateen Telecom, SpaceCom applied to the Lahore High Court (the “LHC”) for recognition and enforcement of awards rendered by a DIFC-LCIA tribunal (the “Tribunal”) under the Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitral Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act, 2011 (the “Act”), which implements the New York Convention (the “NYC”). The awards were rendered in…
The famous saga Sultan de Sulu is coming to an end in France with the French Cour de cassation (Cass. Civ. 1re 6 November 2024, hereinafter the “Ruling”) upholding the Paris Court of Appeal’s decision to refuse the enforcement of the preliminary award whereby the sole arbitrator affirmed his jurisdiction and determined the seat of…
The new bilateral investment treaty (“BIT”) between India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) entered into force on 31 August 2024 (replacing an earlier 2013 treaty between the two nations). Aside from generating optimism for future trade, it heralds good news in relation to concerns around enforcing investor-State awards in India—at least for this BIT….
Service of documents against States raises the usual question of its validity or effectiveness with a particular acuity. Whilst the parties willing to communicate electronically may accommodate communication procedures accordingly, when it comes to service of documents against sovereigns, the electronic mode, due to its derogatory nature, must be duly agreed upon by States and…
In Republic of India v CCDM Holdings (2024 QCCA 1620), the Quebec Court of Appeal (“the Court”) recently confirmed that India had waived its immunity from enforcement and reinstated a pre-judgment attachment of State assets which a first instance decision had previously quashed. Given creditors’ perennial efforts to have their awards enforced against States that…
The doctrine of sovereign immunity has long been a cornerstone of international law, shielding states from enforcement actions. Sovereign immunity can be subdivided in two: immunity from jurisdiction and immunity from execution. While immunity from jurisdiction means that domestic courts are prevented to hear and decide cases involving another sovereign state, immunity from execution precludes…
Following the Blog’s tradition of “year-in-review” series, this post reflects on the key arbitration developments in the Netherlands in 2024. What emerges from this review is the Netherlands’ strong arbitration-friendly culture, notably reflected in the release of the 2024 Netherlands Arbitration Institute (“NAI”) Arbitration Rules and a pro-arbitration stance in court decisions. However, a notable…
The third updated edition of the “Report on compliance with investment treaty awards by States” (the “2024 Report”) was released in November 2024. The Report was conducted in the summer of 2024 by the present author (see for coverage of the 2023 version of the report here and here). In light of the termination of intra-EU international…
In an era increasingly defined by unilateral economic sanctions, international arbitration faces a new set of challenges. Sanctions are not only imposed on the parties but can also implicate arbitrators, as seen in Macquarie Bank Ltd v China Wanda Group Co., Ltd, (2021) Hu 74 Xie Wai Ren No.1, which concerns the enforcement of a…
In Case No. ECLI:NL:GHAMS:2024:947, the Appeal Court in Amsterdam granted leave to enforce an arbitral award despite the applicant being unable to produce the original arbitration agreement or a duly certified copy thereof, as prescribed by article IV(1) of the New York Convention. This post assesses this decision and similar decisions against the background of…
From 20 to 22 November 2024, the Japan Commercial Arbitration Association (JCAA) hosted the second edition of the JCAA Arbitration Days, as part of the inaugural Japan International Arbitration Week (JIAW) in Tokyo. This article reports on the second day of the JCAA Arbitration Days, held in hybrid format on 21 November 2024. The panels…
The Court of Appeal of Amsterdam (the “Court”) recently granted leave to enforce a foreign ICC award in the Netherlands, despite fraud allegations and pending setting-aside proceedings in France. The Court (i) accepted territorial jurisdiction on the basis of the claimant’s plausible intent to enforce within the jurisdiction, (ii) examined the fraud allegations with a…
In a recent ruling of 20 June 2024 (ARB 009/2024 Narcisco v. Nash), the Dubai International Financial Centre (“DIFC”) Court of First Instance (“DIFC CFI”) was asked, as part of a wider investigation to grant an anti-suit injunction, to consider the validity of an arbitration agreement that provided for arbitration under the DIFC-London Court of…
Rusoro Mining Ltd. (“Rusoro”), a Canadian corporation, filed an investment claim against The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (“Venezuela”), pursuant to the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (“ICSID”) Additional Facility Arbitration (“AF”) Rules of April 2006 (Case No. ARB(AF)/12/5). Rusoro claimed that, between 2009 and 2010, Venezuela expropriated its investment over mining rights and…
On 27 June 2024, the United Kingdom (“UK”) ratified the Convention of 2 July 2019 on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil or Commercial Matters (“2019 Hague Convention” or “Convention”), with 1 July 2025 being the expected date of its entry into force in England and Wales. This blog post shall first…
Through Ruling No. 3232-19-EP/24, Ecuador’s Constitutional Court (“Court”) settled a long-standing discussion and confirmed that recognition prior to the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards is an unreasonable requirement in light of the Ecuadorian legal system. In this post, we describe the factual background of the Court’s ruling and examine the procedural issues underlying the recent…
