On July 1, 2020, the investment chapter of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) expired quietly in its North American home, at the age of 26. It left behind a generation of investment treaties and investment chapters in free trade agreements that are its direct descendants. It served as inspiration for many other agreements. …
On July 1, 2020, the United States – Mexico – Canada Agreement (USMCA) will enter into force. Although the media widely refers to the treaty by its American name, USMCA, it also carries two other names: Canada has adopted it as the Canada – United States – Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), while Mexico has settled on…
The filing of new actions continues in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (“D.D.C.”) to enforce ICSID awards rendered against Spain. The latest petition was filed on April 24, 2020, by Watkins Holdings S.à.r.l. and Watkins (Ned) B.V., both affiliates of the UK company Bridgepoint Advisers Limited, seeking the enforcement of…
The Frankfurt Court of Appeals (Oberlandesgericht) has recently taken the view that the publication of a dissenting opinion by the minority arbitrator violates the procedural ordre public, thus constituting a reason to set aside the arbitral award pursuant to Section 1059 para. 2 no 2 b) of the German Code of Civil Procedure (Zivilprozessordnung, ZPO).1)To…
On 1 May 2020, ICSID and UNCITRAL released the long-awaited Draft Code of Conduct for Adjudicators in Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) (“Draft Code”) as previously reported and discussed. Article 1.1 of the Draft Code provides that it applies to “all persons serving as adjudicators in ISDS proceedings”, defined broadly to include arbitrators, ad hoc committee…
Introduction The use of virtual hearings is not new in international arbitration. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated, and accelerated, a shift from in-person hearings to virtual hearings. With travel bans in place and no visibility of when countries will open their borders again, in-person hearings will likely be the exception rather than the norm…
The practice of adverse document production or disclosure is largely foreign in civil law jurisdictions like mainland China. Despite resistance, the growth of judicial practice on document production prompted the Supreme People’s Court of China (“SPC”) to make the new Rules of Evidence on Civil Procedure (“Rules of Evidence”) on December 25, 2019, effective as…
“Success in life is not for those who run fast, but for those, who keep running and are always on the move.” Bangambiki Habyarimana, Pearls Of Eternity This expression may work in both, personal and professional situations. Indeed, there seems to exist a consensus that “arbitration has become a big legal business” and a…
Background In a recent blog post, Luis Capiel and Alicia Larrazabal of Herbert Smith Freehills commented on the Venezuelan Supreme Court of Justice’s decision to stay institutional arbitration proceedings initiated by Modexel Consultores e Servicios S.A. (MODEXEL) against Alimentos Polar Comercial C.A. (POLAR) under the Business Center for Conciliation and Arbitration (CEDCA) arbitration rules. In…
The answer to the question of how to recognize and enforce foreign arbitral awards in currently at least 164 jurisdictions worldwide usually starts with a reference to the 1958 New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (New York Convention). Not so in the Kingdom of eSwatini, one of the few…
Co-organised by YSIAC’s Ms Kirsten Teo and Young ICSID’s Ms Celeste Salinas Quero, this YSIAC-Young ICSID webinar on the impact of the Singapore Convention on Mediation (“Convention”) on international investment disputes brought together five visionary speakers across four time-zones and attracted hundreds of attendees from 50 countries worldwide. With Mr Diogo Pereira (Partner, De Almeida…
Reforms Are Afoot Calls for investor-State dispute settlement (“ISDS”) reform have catalyzed efforts to evolve the regime. Concurrently, the ISDS system continues to wrestle with tensions between an investment regime primarily oriented towards protecting investor rights, and the human rights normative architecture for protection of individual rights and associated State obligations for protection of such rights. ISDS…
Due process is an essential aspect of international arbitration or, indeed, any contentious proceeding. Due process rules act as a shield for parties against unfairness. They ensure that the exercise of a tribunal’s jurisdiction is constrained, such that all parties are given a reasonable opportunity to present their cases. There has been a notable increase…
Not all technology is born equal. In 1739, the French inventor and artist Jacques de Vaucanson unveiled a head-scratching automaton that fascinated contemporaries for more than a century. It was a ‘digesting duck’, which had the apparent ability to eat kernels and actually digest them. The invention was a trick, of course, and it was…
The COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns have the legal community debating and exploring force majeure. That, however, does not rule out the imminent likelihood of international arbitration locking horns with domestic insolvency law. Arbitration agreements and subsequent awards may possibly be left redundant and award-holders remediless where insolvency proceedings are commenced in respect of…
Recent years have seen an uptick in the expansion and enforcement of anti-corruption laws worldwide. In 2017, China amended its Anti-Unfair Competition Law, broadening the scope of bribe recipients covered by the law, and increasing penalties. In 2019, Italy widened its anti-bribery law, No. 3/2019, increasing penalties for both individuals and companies found guilty of…
Africa is in the vanguard of investor obligations in international investment law. As it prepares to seek a continental investment code for the second time, it finds itself at a crossroads. In tracing the emergence and trajectory of investment instruments toward the historic juncture to which Africa presently arrives, one glimpses the promise of a…
Welcome to the Kluwer Arbitration Blog, Ms. Magnusson! We are grateful for this opportunity to learn more about the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (SCC) and your experience with international arbitration in the region. To start, could you briefly introduce yourself and explain your role at SCC? Thank you….
Introduction For the purpose of this article, there are some words and principles that shall be defined before raising the main issue. Article 412 of the Commercial Code of Iran (CCI) defines the bankruptcy of an entity (natural or legal person) as the result of its cessation in payment of its debt. In this situation,…
Document production in China – getting to maybe Document production (also known as “discovery”) is still a very foreign concept in China’s civil law court system. The traditional notion of “who claims, proves” (“谁主张，谁举证“) in China’s Civil Procedural Law has ingrained in people’s mind that one has to prove its case by its own evidence….
Chinese involvement in 5G infrastructure development has been an issue of concern for policy makers globally. This post addresses the question of whether the Chinese multinational Huawei would have an investment claim against the German government were they to prohibit its participation in 5G deployment. Germany is selected as a case study due to the…
Long before the now-popular phrase “pale, male, and stale,” leading arbitrators were instead often referred to as a “club,” a “cartel,” or even a “monopoly.” Those references were meant metaphorically, even jokingly. The irony is that they turn out to hold important truths that are promiscuously intertwined with the pale-male-stale moniker. To understand both, we…
The Prolonged saga of enforcement of the ICC commercial arbitration award of 2015 in Devas v. Antrix (ICC Case No. 18051/ CYK of 2011) has not only raised several interesting questions in respect of pathological arbitration agreements but has also highlighted the ineffectiveness of the “Negative Effect” of the doctrine of Kompetenz-Kompetenz, given the possible…
The recent case of Itisaluna Iraq LLC and Others v. Republic of Iraq represents the first time that an ICSID tribunal had been constituted under the Agreement on Promotion and Protection and Guarantee of Investments among Member States of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (the “OIC Agreement”). The tribunal affirmed that the OIC Agreement contains a…
