It’s been nearly two months since public hearings concluded in an ICSID arbitration brought by a U.S. investor, Railroad Development Corporation, against the Republic of Guatemala. And it’s been about 8 months since public hearings wrapped up in another ICSID arbitration between Pacific Rim and the Republic of El Salvador. Both proceedings were webcast online,…
Just a few weeks ago, an arbitral award made headlines in the German press: “Advisors in Märklin deal to pay multi-million euro fine”, “Märklin: advisors to pay damages”, “Märklin fallout: Former owner awarded $18.7 million in judgment against consultant”, to name but a few examples. According to the newspapers, the US-based consulting firm AlixPartners was…
By Matthias Scherer and Sam Moss In a recent decision issued on 7 November 2011 on a request for annulment of a partial award on jurisdiction rendered by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (“TAS”), the Swiss Supreme Court recalled and applied its previous jurisprudence on the interpretation of pathological arbitration clauses (Case 4A_246/2011). The…
This is an update on the post of 27 January 2012 dealing with the African Fertilisers decision. Last week, the English Court of Appeal handed down its judgment in the latest episode of the West Tankers dispute, upholding the first instance decision and approving the decision of the Commercial Court in African Fertilisers. The decision…
Last week was a blockbuster one in the ongoing battle between Chevron and Ecuador. On Wednesday, the arbitral tribunal adjudicating Chevron’s BIT claim issued an Interim Award ordering Ecuador “to take all measures at its disposal to suspend or cause to be suspended the enforcement or recognition within or without Ecuador of any judgment against…
In February 2010, Philip Morris International (PMI) filed a request for arbitration under the ICSID Convention against the Republic of Uruguay. 1)Philip Morris Brand Sàrl (Switzerland), Philip Morris Products S.A. (Switzerland) and Abal Hermanos S.A. (Uruguay) v. Oriental Republic of Uruguay (ICSID Case No. ARB/10/7). Pending (the Respondent filed a memorial on jurisdiction on September…
The judgment in the case of Mary Harvey v. Motor Insurer’s Bureau (QBD (Merc) (Manchester), Claim No: 0MA40077, 21 December 2011) just before Christmas provided another opportunity for the English courts to rule on their ability to consider appeals on a point of law. This controversial power, retained in the UK’s Arbitration Act notwithstanding its…
It has become fashionable in recent years, each time an ICSID annulment decision is released that takes issue with the procedures or reasoning of an ICSID tribunal, for commentators to bemoan the lack of certainty, predictability and finality that this reflects in the ICSID system for adjudicating investment treaty disputes between investors and host States….
Following the path of the hotly debated West Tankers decision, in African Fertilizers v BD Shipsnavo, the English Commercial Court held that a declaratory award is enforceable, allowing judgment to be entered on the same terms as the arbitral award. Such an order enables a party to obtain the material benefit of the award and…
This is the second article in a three-part series summarising the main valuation methodologies used for the purposes of determining economic loss. In part one, I provided an overview of the market-approach methodology. I now turn to the income-based approach, focusing on the discounted cash flow (DCF) methodology. In my previous article, I noted that…
What makes an international arbitrator different from a national judge? All of us in the arbitration world have a pretty solid answer to this question. At what point do the distinctions between an international arbitrator and an international judge melt away? That’s a bit of a trickier question, depending on the case. With the increase…
On December 14, the Second Circuit rendered its decision in Figueiredo Ferraz e Engenharia de Projecto Ltda. v. Republic of Peru, 2001 WL 6188497 (2d Cir. Dec. 14, 2011), which represents a significant development in the court’s jurisprudence on forum non conveniens dismissals of actions to enforce foreign arbitral awards. As explained below, the decision…
On behalf of the many contributors to this blog and the good folks at Kluwer Law International, I am pleased to announce that this blog has won CPR’s 2011 award for best electronic media focused on ADR. The press release is here. As most of you know, the CPR Institute is a nonprofit think tank…
The P.R.I.M.E. Finance dispute resolution services and its Arbitration and Mediation Rules were launched at the opening conference of P.R.I.M.E. Finance in the Peace Palace in The Hague on 16 January 2012. Dutch Minister of Finance Jan-Kees de Jager officially opened P.R.I.M.E. Finance, which offers dispute resolution services in the area of complex financial products….
At its session of 15 November 2011, the International Council of Arbitration for Sports (ICAS) amended Article 14 of the Statutes of the bodies working for the settlement of Sport-related Disputes (Article S14) and abandoned the old regime which provided that with regard to the list of CAS arbitrators, the ICAS had to respect a…
The recent decision in Spyridon Roussalis v. Romania (ICSID Case No. ARB/06/1) is prompting renewed debate over whether ICSID arbitration, now the leading mechanism for investors to pursue treaty-based claims against host States, may also be used by those States to assert related counterclaims against the investors, allowing all such claims to be settled in…
Last month’s judgment of the Hong Kong Court of Appeal (“CA“) in Gao Haiyan and Xie Heping v. Keeneye Holdings and another CACV 79/2011, is the latest in a long line of cases demonstrating the pro-enforcement approach of the Hong Kong courts. The decision makes clear that it is not the place of the Hong…
The International Bar Association annual conference in Dubai in November put the spotlight on the arbitral regime in Dubai. Several “hot topics” were discussed, including the possibility that counsel representing parties in arbitrations in Dubai would be charged a hefty fee by the Dubai government and the prospect of a new United Arab Emirates (UAE)…
On Tuesday, 10 January 2012, a Constitution Bench of the Indian Supreme Court began hearings in Bharat Aluminium v Kaiser Aluminium (Civil Appeal No. 7019 of 2005) and related matters to reconsider its earlier judgment in Bhatia International v Bulk Trading SA, (2002) 4 SCC 105 (“Bhatia”). In Bhatia, the court held that the Indian…
After the 2011 Decree which reformed French arbitration law, the number of countries having arbitration acts expressly providing for the possibility of waiving setting aside proceedings at the seat has increased. In view of the fact that arbitration rules of some institutions provide for a waiver of “any form of recourse” against awards rendered under…
Yograj Infrastructure Ltd. Vs. Ssang Yong Engineering and Construction Co. Ltd. (on 1 September 2011) As reported in this blog, in May 2011 the Supreme Court of India (SCI) moderated the controversial principle it established in 2002 that allowed the Indian courts to intervene in arbitrations held outside of India unless that possibility was expressly…
On January 3, 2012 an Ecuador Appeals Court affirmed the $18 billion judgment against Chevron in the long-running battle over environmental damage. (Available in English and the original Spanish here). According to an unofficial English translation of the sixteen page opinion, the Court dismissed all of Chevron’s arguments, including the allegations of fraud. Here is…
When the strong federal policy in favor of honoring arbitration agreements in the U.S. comes into conflict with another strong legal principle, which one should come out on top? The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently illustrated this tension in Kolev v. Euromotors West/The Auto Gallery, 658 F.3d 1024, holding that…
Iura novit curia (usually translated as “the court knows the law”) refers to the power and/or obligation of a court to conduct its own legal analysis outside the parties’ pleadings. While there are very few decisions on iura novit curia in the investment treaty arbitration context, a small number of investment treaty arbitral tribunals and…
