February 28, 2013 (Vol. 6, No. 5)
1. First hearing in Philip Morris v. Australia arbitration is pushed into 2014, as New Zealand reveals it is awaiting outcome of Australian cases
2. Effort fails in bid to disqualify former Argentine official Gabriel Bottini in Saint-Gobain v. Venezuela arbitration
3. Sri Lanka breached BIT due to Central Bank and Supreme Court actions; dissenter says highest court did not act in bad faith in financial derivatives dispute
4. On jurisdiction, arbitrators disagree whether a hedging agreement is an investment covered by bilateral investment treaty and ICSID Convention
5. On merits, tribunal splits on deference to be shown to Sri Lanka Supreme Court – and whether a debt is expropriated if contractual dispute forum is available
6. Jurisdiction is upheld in claim by logistics company, Agility Warehousing, against Pakistan
7. Investor concedes that UK-Hungary BIT allows only arbitration of expropriation claim; tribunal clarifies role of MFN and customary international law
8. New reporting on arbitral debts of the Dominican Republic and Mexico
9. Chair is named in high-stakes Ping An v. Belgium arbitration over Fortis Bank shareholding
10. Korean professor to chair second dispute over Owens-Illinois investments in Venezuela; ICSID Secretariat continues to tap new arbitrators from East Asia
11. Tribunal now in place for ICSID arbitration by Dutch investor (Venoklim) in Venezuelan petrochemicals plant
12. New Works On International Investment Law, December 2012 to February 2013
February 14, 2013 (Vol. 6, No. 4) – (Click to Download – Subscribers Only)
1. UN Working Group finalizes UNCITRAL transparency rules, but they won’t apply automatically to stockpiles of existing investment treaties
2. Another divided ICSID tribunal finds it has jurisdiction to arbitrate an Argentine sovereign debt dispute; failure to pursue local remedies not fatal to case
3. Tribunal sees no reason to exclude sovereign debt from investments eligible for protection at ICSID and under bilateral investment treaty
4. ANALYSIS: As Ecuador is held in breach of order to block enforceability of Lago Agrio judgment, tribunal remains reticent as to why it sees harm to Chevron as irreparable
5. Dutch investor seeks to test limits of investment treaty arbitration by asking arbitrators to block state from expropriating its assets
6. ICSID tribunal rules that Tidewater did not restructure Venezuelan assets in an abusive fashion; however, some claims are beyond tribunal’s jurisdiction
7. ICSID Annulment Committee selected to hear Argentina’s bid to annul $200 million arbitral award in EDF electricity dispute
8. Arbitrators selected for Telefonica v. Mexico investment treaty arbitration
9. Arbitral tribunal is convened to review Egypt’s treatment of French investor in waste management concession
10. ICSID tribunal is finalized for claim by two Italian investors in Romanian steel plant
February 7, 2013 (Vol. 6, No. 3) –
1. Investor gets a 2 million dollar bump to CAFTA award, but fails to convince tribunal to revisit other parts of award
2. Tribunal rules on U.S. Government’s request to bifurcate NAFTA Chapter 11 arbitration proceedings
3. Jurisdictional disagreements are laid bare in NAFTA arbitration; Apotex production facilities located outside the United States figure prominently
4. Parties to Apotex v. U.S.A. NAFTA arbitration spar over meaning of legal protections including “effective means” and non-discrimination obligations
5. Green energy arbitration moves forward as arbitrators are picked and preliminary arguments tabled by investor and Canada
6. ICSID Tribunal declines request by local government to be added as a party to Churchill Mining v. Indonesia arbitration
7. Caribbean Court of Justice to rule on anti-arbitration injunction issued by Belize court, as well as on harsh Belizean penalties for thwarting injunctions
8. Arbitrators hold that contract wording – and claim pending thereunder – may narrow claims eligible for arbitration under Republic of Guinea’s Foreign Investment Law
9. Battle is joined on second treaty-arbitration front in Israel-Egypt gas fight, as ad-hoc arbitral tribunal is chosen
10. ICSID Tribunals selected in Dan Cake v. Hungary and Sudapet v. South Sudan arbitrations