Mealey's International Arbitration : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's International Arbitration

December 14, 2022
Guatemalan Contractor Urges En Banc 11th Circuit To Treat $7M Award As ‘Domestic’

ATLANTA — A Guatemalan contractor urges the en banc 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to reconsider circuit precedent and allow the consideration of “domestic grounds for vacatur” in reviewing its petition to vacate an arbitral award worth more than $7 million for a canceled hydroelectric dam project because the award was issued by a Miami-seated tribunal.
December 13, 2022
ICSID Tribunal Rejects Albania’s Request To Disqualify Arbitrator

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Addressing a question of first impression, two arbitrators recently denied the Republic of Albania’s request to disqualify a third arbitrator, who sat on the tribunal that issued a 2019 arbitral award against Albania, from sitting with them on a partially reconstituted tribunal hearing Albania’s application to revise an award ordering them to pay more than 107 million euros to a group of Italian investors.
December 13, 2022
ICSID Tribunal Refuses To Order Disclosures From Alleged Third-Party Funder

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) tribunal denied the Argentine Republic’s request that it order wide-ranging financial disclosures from a member of the counsel to a Spanish claimant who Argentina claimed is actually a third-party litigation funder behind multiple arbitration claims brought by investors against states.
December 06, 2022
Colombia’s Security Defense Was Brought In Bad Faith, Investors Tell ICSID

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A group of American investors tell an International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in a recently published rebuttal that the Republic of Colombia is using an “essential security” jurisdictional defense in bad faith against their claims for unlawful expropriation of land they purchased, despite bringing no allegations of impropriety or illegal conduct against them or the lot’s previous owners.
December 06, 2022
Company Seeks To Enforce $168M Award Against Peru For Canceled Broadband Contracts

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Peruvian company recently filed a petition in a District of Columbia federal court seeking to confirm and enforce an International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) arbitral award worth more than $168 million against the Republic of Peru and two state organs for abruptly terminating contracts with the company to set up new broadband networks through rural regions of the country and ordering them to pay off certain bonds.
December 06, 2022
Swedish-Iranian Investor Settles ICSID Claims Against United Arab Emirates

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) on Dec. 5 published a settlement agreement resolving arbitral claims brought by a Swedish-Iranian investor against the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in relation to alleged harms to his distribution business, which the parties entered after disputing the validity of the investor’s evidence that he submitted to the tribunal.
December 02, 2022
Miner Says Mexican President Ordered Quarry Shutdown After It Brought NAFTA Claims

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) on Dec. 1 published a U.S. investor’s ancillary memorial arguing that after it commenced a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) arbitration against the United Mexican States, the Mexican president began publicly harassing its subsidiary and ordered the shutdown of its last remaining quarry.
December 01, 2022
Russian Properly Brought RICO Claim Against $100M Award-Debtor, High Court Told

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Russian national in a recent brief urges the U.S. Supreme Court to deny petitions for certiorari filed by an award-debtor in California and a Monaco bank that seek to challenge Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) claims against them for conspiring to evade enforcement of an arbitral award worth more than $100 million, arguing that his foreign citizenship does not deprive him of standing to bring civil RICO claims.
December 01, 2022
U.S. Driller Says Slovak Republic Hindered Investment, Causing $568M In Damages

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) on Nov. 30 published a U.S. oil company’s memorial asserting that the Slovak Republic caused it to lose more than $568.2 million in potential profits by failing to remove protesters from a work site and imposing unnecessary regulatory requirements, thereby indirectly expropriating its investment.
November 30, 2022
BVI Entity Drops Appeal In $21.5M Award Fight Against Chinese Oil Company

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Nov. 29 dismissed a British Virgin Islands (BVI) entity’s appeal of the dismissal of its petition to confirm an arbitral award worth more than $21.5 million against a Chinese oil exploration and production company after the parties jointly stipulated to dismissal.
November 28, 2022
PCA Drops Arbitrator From Venezuelan Dispute Citing Overlap With Colleague’s Case

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) secretary-general recently barred an arbitrator from hearing a German airline’s claims against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela due to a colleague at his firm having previously presided over another foreign airline’s arbitration against Venezuela that involved nearly identical allegations.
November 23, 2022
High Court Urged To Review Circuit Split Over Choice Of Law In Arbitration Cases

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An Australian entity urges the U.S. Supreme Court in a petition for a writ of certiorari to address a “long-simmering split among the circuits” regarding whether the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) allows federal law to apply by default to an arbitration agreement in a contract governed by state law, as the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held when applying federal rather than Georgia law to uphold an $8 million arbitral award against it.
November 22, 2022
ICSID Denies Colombia Access To Investor’s Restructuring Records In $350M Claim

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) on Nov. 21 published a tribunal’s order denying the Republic of Colombia’s request for unredacted records regarding the corporate restructuring of an internet services investor who claims that Colombia caused it more than $350 million in damages by expropriating its contract.
November 11, 2022
COMMENTARY: Can You Still Enforce Awards In Spain That Have Been Set Aside?

By Javier Hernández Valenciano
November 01, 2022
COMMENTARY: Arbitral Immunity At Common Law And Its Limits

By Robert M. Hall
November 21, 2022
Guatemala Again Seeks Default Against Israeli Energy Company In $1.8M Award Row

NEW YORK — The Republic of Guatemala again moved in a New York federal court for entry of default judgment confirming a $1.8 million award for arbitration costs and legal fees against an Israeli energy company that has not appeared in nearly 12 months to respond to the petition regarding a two-year-old arbitration award.
November 21, 2022
Arbitrator, CPR Ask Court To Quash Subpoena In $50M Award-Debtor’s Litigation

NEW YORK — The International Institution for Conflict Prevention & Resolution (CPR) and the arbitrator who issued a $50 million arbitral award against a Japanese businessman on Nov. 18 filed an emergency motion in New York federal court to quash a subpoena issued to the arbitrator by a company the businessman says must indemnify him for the full award, writing that the subpoena impermissibly seeks testimony about a confidential arbitral proceeding.
November 21, 2022
German Cement Investor’s Claims Against Iraq Dismissed By ICSID Tribunal

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) tribunal dismissed all claims brought by a German investor against the Republic of Iraq for allegedly causing it nearly $890 million in damages by expropriating its industrial investments in Iraq and Kurdistan, writing that it lacks jurisdiction because Germany “never ratified” a bilateral investment treaty (BIT) with Iraq and no other treaty or contract creates jurisdiction.
November 18, 2022
ICSID Tribunal Denies Miners’ Association’s Request For Arbitral Documents

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) tribunal hearing a mining dispute between a Canadian mining company and the Republic of Colombia recently rejected a miners’ association’s request for access to documents and evidence provided by the parties in the arbitration.
November 18, 2022
Italy Challenges 190M Euro ICSID Award To Driller For Offshore Drilling Ban

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Italian Republic has applied to the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) to annul a more than 190-million-euro award against it for breaching the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) by unlawfully expropriating three companies’ investments by prohibiting offshore drilling after its environmental ministry authorized their project.
November 17, 2022
Panel Sends Lawyer’s Dispute With Former Firm To New York Arbitration

LOS ANGELES — A California appellate panel ordered a long-running dispute between a lawyer and his former firm over the allocation of a contingency fee arising out of an international arbitration in China to arbitration in New York, ruling that arbitrators must address the lawyer’s argument that he is entitled to void his agreement to arbitrate with the firm under California law.
November 17, 2022
Tribunal Orders Venezuela To Pay Oil Investor $108M In Unpaid Dividends Dispute

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) on Nov. 16 published a tribunal’s final award ordering the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to pay a Barbadian oil and gas investor more than $108 million plus more than 600,000 euros for two years of intentionally unpaid dividends on its shares of a Venezuelan entity, plus interest accrued since 2011, attorney fees and arbitration costs.
November 17, 2022
English Justice Rejects Nigerian Company’s Challenge To Tribunal’s Jurisdiction

LONDON — A justice of the High Court of England and Wales on Nov. 17 denied two applications by a Nigerian oil field development company challenging an International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) tribunal’s awards finding jurisdiction over a dispute with a company that lent it roughly $500 million and consolidating the claim with another arbitration brought by investors who lent it nearly $1.5 billion, finding that the parties’ arbitration agreement took effect as soon as the lenders requested arbitration of the dispute.
November 10, 2022
Court Asked To Compel Arbitration With Unauthorized Reinsurer Over Security

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Alleging in part a $22,738,571 deficiency in required security for four reinsurance agreements, an insurer petitioned a Connecticut federal court to compel arbitration with “an unauthorized reinsurer domiciled in the Cayman Islands.”
November 09, 2022
Netherlands Says ICSID Should Reject Coal Investors’ 1.4B Euro Claim

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Kingdom of the Netherlands in a countermemorial published online by the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) on Nov. 8 urges a tribunal to find that it did not violate the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) or cause coal power investors 1.4 billion euros in damages by banning coal-powered energy plants after 2030 because the move was “a legitimate exercise of the Netherlands’ right to regulate in the public interest to curb global warming.”