ASEAN, BIT, Investment agreements, Investment Arbitration, NAFTA, Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties

(University of Notre Dame)/ /3 Comments
Institute for Transnational Arbitration (ITA)

Investment treaty provisions that allow joint decisions by States Parties to override or control arbitral tribunals’ interpretations of investment treaty standards scarcely appear in international investment agreements. The recently released 2012 United States Model BIT is a rare example. The 2012 version carried over Article 30(3) of the 2004 United States Model BIT, enabling States…

BIT, International Legal Theory and Teaching

(Notre Dame Law School)/ /Leave a comment

I have just published an article in the Utah Law Review that I wanted to flag for our readers. For the international arbitration community the article is relevant because it compares and contrasts the self-judging WTO security exception with non-self-judging emergency exceptions in various BITs. The focus of the Article is on the WTO security…

BIT, Investment Arbitration, Investment protection

(Arnold & Porter LLP)/ /Leave a comment
Institute for Transnational Arbitration (ITA)

After a review process that lasted three years, expectations ran high for the revised model U.S. bilateral investment treaty (“BIT”), which was released last month. Stakeholders from many parts of society — the U.S. Congress, environmental organizations, labor groups, business groups, trade associations, academia, the public, and investment experts — weighed in during the review…

Arbitration Act, Arbitration Proceedings

(Schellenberg Wittmer)/ /Leave a comment
Schellenberg Wittmer

The revised Swiss Rules of International Arbitration (“Swiss Rules”) enter into force today, 1 June 2012. While some general background has been given elsewhere (see here), the following specific features of the revised Swiss Rules can be underlined. Under the revised Swiss Rules, the administration of the arbitrations by the Court remains light as it…

Arbitration, Arbitration Agreements, Arbitration clause, Arbitration Institutions and Rules, Arbitration Proceedings, Commercial Arbitration, International arbitration

(Editor in Chief, ASA Bulletin; LALIVE)/ /1 Comment

On 1 June 2012, the new revised version of the Swiss Rules of International Arbitration (“Swiss Rules”) will come into force.  According to Article 1.3, the new Rules will apply to all Swiss Rules proceedings in which the Request for Arbitration is submitted after 1 June 2012, unless the Parties agree otherwise. The Swiss Rules…

Canada, Investment Arbitration

(Notre Dame Law School)/ /1 Comment

The shoe has finally dropped. Ever since the Invictus Memo was released to the public we knew that the Ecuadorian Plaintiffs were considering twenty-seven different countries to enforce the $18.2 Ecuadorian judgment against Chevron. With Chevron’s far-flung assets, it was plausible that the Plaintiffs would choose to enforce the judgment in countries with close ties…

Africa, BIT, ICSID Convention, Investment Arbitration

(Mishcon de Reya)/ /1 Comment

On 18 April 2012, South Sudan signed and ratified the 1965 Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States (the ‘ICSID Convention’). In accordance with Article 68(2) thereof, the Convention entered into force for Sudan thirty days later, i.e. on 18 May 2012. The membership of Africa’s newest republic…

Arbitrators, Costs

(Linklaters)/ /Leave a comment

In recent decades, Spanish legislators have increasingly turned their attention to private arbitration. The Spanish Arbitration Act 1953, mainly dealing with civil actions, was replaced by the 1988 Act directed at resolutions of commercial disputes, with a particular focus on international commercial arbitration. The aim was to make Spain a leader in the field, taking…

Arbitration Act, Arbitration Agreements, Arbitration clause, BIT, Confidentiality, Dispute resolution clause, Investment Arbitration

(Herbert Smith Freehills LLP)/ /Leave a comment
Herbert Smith Freehills

In a judgment dated 25 April 2012 (Lombard North Central plc and another v GATX Corporation [2012] EWHC 1067 (Comm)), Judge Andrew Smith of the English High Court (Commercial Court) underlined the potential risks that might arise from arbitration clauses which have a limited scope. Although this judgment is relevant to a number of different…

Arbitration Act, Arbitration Proceedings, English Law

(Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP)/ /Leave a comment
WilmerHale

A recent decision of the English Commercial Court (Lombard North Central plc & Anor v GATX Corporation [2012] EWHC 1067 (Comm)) has provided some insight and clarification into how the English courts will interpret and implement Section 9(1) of the Arbitration Act 1996. Section 9 is how English law has complied with Article II(3) of…

Arbitration Agreements, Enforcement

(Norton Rose Fulbright)/ /Leave a comment
YSIAC

A party who wishes to circumvent an arbitration agreement may sometimes proceed to obtain default judgment from a friendly court and then seek to enforce that judgment, under the common law, as a debt in the courts of the country where the counterparty is located. A recent Singapore decision, Giant Light Metal Technology (Kunshan) Co…

Arbitration, Investment Arbitration, Latin America

(Von Wobeser y Sierra, S.C.)/ /4 Comments

For almost 20 years, Mexico has been at the forefront of Latin-American arbitration practice. It has been widely recognized both in terms of the quality and sophistication of its practitioners, its modern legal framework (since 1993 based on the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration) and for its arbitration friendly judiciary. According to statistics…

Confidentiality

(Conway & Partners)/ /Leave a comment

Over the years, many arguments have been made for what are truly the benefits of international arbitration over local litigation. There are many factors that are listed and ensuing arguments over their continued veracity. Complaints are launched about whether such factors truly remain a benefit (the largest and most obvious one which comes to mind…

Investment agreements, Investment Arbitration, Investment protection

(Investment Arbitration Reporter)/ /2 Comments

This week, Spanish energy firm Repsol put Argentina on notice of an arbitration claim under the Spain-Argentina bilateral investment treaty. The development comes as no surprise, as Repsol had been threatening for some weeks to take such a course if Argentina persisted in nationalizing the bulk of Repsol’s 57% stake in the Argentine firm YPF….

Arbitration Agreements, Middle East

(Mechantaf Law)/ /Leave a comment

On 6 March 2012, Justice Sir David Steel of the Court of First Instance of the Dubai International Financial Centre – DIFC – rendered a decision refusing to grant a stay of the proceedings, and ignoring an option in the underlying contract to opt out of the Court’s jurisdiction by referring to LCIA arbitration. In…

Arbitration Proceedings, Commercial Arbitration, Investment Arbitration, Section 1782 Discovery

(Notre Dame Law School)/ /2 Comments

When is an arbitral panel an international tribunal for purposes of Section 1782? Section 1782, of course, is the U.S. statute that authorizes federal courts to order discovery in aid of proceedings before foreign courts and international tribunals. As discussed in a forthcoming article in the Virginia Journal of International Law entitled, Ancillary Discovery to…

Arbitration clause, Damages, Europe, Jurisdiction

(Linklaters)/ /Leave a comment

This post follows on from the highly informative Kluwer Arbitration Blog post by Elizabeth Kantor, “The ‘West Tankers’ Saga Continues: Can Damages Compensate for Breach of an Arbitration Clause?” Whilst that focussed principally on the implications for, and efficacy of, the type of award in issue the purpose this post is, in contrast, to look…

Arbitration clause, Damages, Europe, Jurisdiction

(Herbert Smith Freehills LLP)/ /Leave a comment
Herbert Smith Freehills

In the most recent of a long-running series of decisions in the West Tankers saga, the English court has found that the majority of the tribunal was wrong to decline jurisdiction to award equitable damages or to declare a party liable to indemnify the other as a result of the breach of an arbitration clause….

BIT, Commercial Arbitration, International Law, Investment agreements, Investment Arbitration, Investment protection

(University of Portsmouth)/ /10 Comments
Institute for Transnational Arbitration (ITA)

The concept of good faith has been a subject of perennial controversy since it was derived from the Roman legal equivalent ‘bonas fides’. Juristic views on and the legal conceptualization of the idea of good faith may often vary across the cultural divides and legal traditions. At a higher level of abstraction there may be…

Asia-Pacific, Commercial Arbitration

(Peter & Kim)/ /1 Comment
Bae, Kim & Lee LLC

In recent years, Korea has become an object of some attention in the international arbitration field. But less than 15 years ago, there was no “arbitration field” in Korea to speak of. I, myself, was a maritime lawyer and it was only a twist of fate – the request of a client – that put…

Arbitration Institutions and Rules, Enforcement, New York Convention

(Linklaters)/ /1 Comment

A recent administrative event in Delhi may have profound implications for the ongoing rivalry between Singapore and Hong Kong as Asia’s arbitration hubs of choice. On 19 March 2012 India confirmed that it will add the Peoples’ Republic of China (including the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macao) to the list of so-called…

arbitrators’ conduct, Conflicts of interest

(Independent Arbitrator)/ /1 Comment

Section 3.3.6 of the IBA Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest in International Arbitration advise that when a “close personal friendship exists between an arbitrator and counsel of one party, as demonstrated by the fact that the arbitrator and the counsel regularly spend considerable time together unrelated to professional work commitments or the activities of professional…

BIT, Umbrella clause

(Norton Rose Fulbright)/ /Leave a comment
YSIAC

In a recent award that arguably represents a high-water mark for the operation of an umbrella clause in ICSID jurisprudence thus far, a tribunal comprising Stanimir A. Alexandrov (as President), Donald Francis Donovan and Pablo Garcia Mexia held Paraguay liable to SGS Société Générale de Surveillance S.A. (“SGS”) for failing to pay for services rendered….

Arbitration, Disclosure, Third party funding

(Conway & Partners)/ /Leave a comment

A central concern the in the third party funding arena is: Whether or not parties who are funded by a third party funder should be obligated to disclose this funding relationship. Looking at a recent conference in which many key funders participated on sharing their perspectives, it appears that many funders preferred to keep their…