The Dawn of a New BIT Generation? – The New European Investment Policy
In July this year, the European Commission published its communication “Towards a comprehensive European international investment policy” (COM(2010) 343 final) and a draft Regulation “establishing transitional arrangements for bilateral investment agreements between Member States and third countries” (2010/0197 (COD)). This initiative is based on the still controversial change brought about by the Lisbon Treaty, by which the Member States included “foreign direct investments” in the Common Commercial Policy (Article 207 TFEU) and thus made it an exclusive competence of the European Union. The Commission is now claiming this new exclusive competence for the Union and seeks to deve [...]
Manifest Disregard is Dead – Long Live § 10(a)(4) FAA?
The relevance of the Supreme Court’s Hall decision in Hall Street Associates, L.L.C. v. Mattel, Inc., 128 S. Ct. 1369 (2008) for the question of whether “manifest disregard of the law” can constitute a ground for vacatur of an arbitral award by a U.S. court has already been addressed in an earlier post to this blog, which was prompted by the Fifth Circuit decision in Citigroup Global Markets, Inc. v. Bacon, 2009 WL 542780, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 4543. In this decision, the Fifth Circuit stressed its understanding that “Hall Street rejected manifest disregard as an independent ground for vacatur” and declared – much to the joy of most critics of the “manifest disregard” doctrine – that “manifes [...]
