At the beginning of April, the Brazilian Senate established a Committee for the modification of the Brazilian Arbitration Law – Law no. 9.307 of September 1996. The president of the Committee, Luís Felipe Salomão, believes that the new amendments will strengthen arbitration, as an alternative dispute resolution mechanism. Salomão suggests that the goal of these modifications will be the alignment of the Arbitration Law with the amendments of the Civil Code of 2002 and the reform of the judiciary system in 2004.

However, the actual need to amend the Brazilian Arbitration Law is under debate. Rumors in the corners of the Brazilian law firms suggest that the establishment of the Committee [...]

The ICC Institute of World Business Law has launched the 2013 edition of the Institute Prize for dissertations and essays on international commercial law, including arbitration, for anyone under the age of 40. The Prize of 10,000 Euro is awarded by a jury consisting of members of the ICC Institute Council. Essays and doctoral dissertations on international commercial law, including arbitration, written in one of the official languages of the Institute – English or French, must be submitted to the Secretariat of the Institute by 1 April 2013. Further details about the competition can be accessed here.

The 2011 Institute Prize was won by Claire Debourg for her doctoral thesis on “Les contra [...]

So you placed your bets on Argentina’s recovery after the 2001 crisis? It is not too late to give it another thought. While Argentina’s economy grew by approximately 9 percent in 2011, it fell dramatically in 2012 to around 3 percent. The (unofficial) inflation rate is set to 25% and the dollar reached a staggering 7 pesos mark on the black market. Another collapse of the economy in the near future? Probably. And there are more signs.

Cristina Kirchner’s plan to redress the economy hit hard the Argentines enjoying a brief period of rest after the last crisis. The last months of 2012 saw the streets of Buenos Aires filled with thousands of protesters demanding tax cuts and lower inflati [...]

The notion of ‘investment’ has been one of the most controversial issues in arbitral proceedings instituted under the ICSID Convention. The award rendered by the UNCITRAL arbitral tribunal in Romak v. Uzbekistan has brought the issue outside of the ICSID context and concluded that, despite the broad definitions of ‘investment’ in Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs), the term ‘investment’ has an inherent meaning that cannot be ignored. Although not as disputed as the notion of ‘investment’ within the ICSID Convention, the meaning of ‘Investment’ under the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) is still open to debate.

In Petrobart v. Kyrgyzstan (the ECT-based claim), the tribunal de [...]