Chevron Ecuador Dispute Heats Up
Last week was a blockbuster one in the ongoing battle between Chevron and Ecuador. On Wednesday, the arbitral tribunal adjudicating Chevron’s BIT claim issued an Interim Award ordering Ecuador “to take all measures at its disposal to suspend or cause to be suspended the enforcement or recognition within or without Ecuador of any judgment against [Chevron] in the Lago Agrio Case.”
The tribunal was at pains to emphasize the interim award was final and binding under Article 32 of the UNCITRAL Rules, which means that Chevron could pursue recognition and enforcement of the award in jurisdictions around the world. It could do so offensively by seeking declaratory relief in Ecuador (or elsewher [...]
Investor-State Arbitration and Plain Packaging: The New ‘Anti-Tobacco Movement’ Has Begun
- By J. Martin Hunter, Essex Court Chambers,
for ITA
In February 2010, Philip Morris International (PMI) filed a request for arbitration under the ICSID Convention against the Republic of Uruguay. 1 The claim relates to two pieces of legislation enacted by Uruguay which require tobacco companies to comply with strict plain packaging measures. These regulations limit the use of registered tobacco trademarks, allowing the brand name of the tobacco product to be written in a standard font only. In addition, health warnings will be displayed on the package, which will leave tobacco corporations with no option but to sell cigarettes in generic packages.
PMI contends that the Uruguayan regulations violate several provisions of the Switzerland-Urugua [...]
The Unavoidability of Uncertainty: One Lesson from the Recent U.S. Court Ruling in Argentina v. BG Group
It has become fashionable in recent years, each time an ICSID annulment decision is released that takes issue with the procedures or reasoning of an ICSID tribunal, for commentators to bemoan the lack of certainty, predictability and finality that this reflects in the ICSID system for adjudicating investment treaty disputes between investors and host States. Some commentators urge a return to greater use of ad hoc UNCITRAL arbitration, or arbitration before institutions other than ICSID, to avoid the perceived vagaries of the ICSID annulment process. Yet commentators often forget that these alternatives carry their own risks of uncertainty, inherent in the national court review process tha [...]
Ecuador Appeals Court Affirms Lago Agrio Judgment
On January 3, 2012 an Ecuador Appeals Court affirmed the $18 billion judgment against Chevron in the long-running battle over environmental damage. (Available in English and the original Spanish here). According to an unofficial English translation of the sixteen page opinion, the Court dismissed all of Chevron’s arguments, including the allegations of fraud. Here is a taste:
As for the invalidity of the trial “for procedural fraud and violation of the guarantees of due process” it must be said that the record of the trial court reflects that the Defendants have exercised a vigorous and ample defense in the trial—the thousands of pages that bloat the trial have already been menti [...]
Iura Novit Curia in Investment Treaty Arbitration: May? Must?
Iura novit curia (usually translated as “the court knows the law”) refers to the power and/or obligation of a court to conduct its own legal analysis outside the parties’ pleadings. While there are very few decisions on iura novit curia in the investment treaty arbitration context, a small number of investment treaty arbitral tribunals and ad hoc annulment committees have found that they have similar powers. More recently, at least two ICSID annulment committees have gone further, suggesting that iura novit curia is not only a power tribunals may exercise, but one tribunals must exercise. This short note does not address the appropriateness of iura novit curia in investment treaty arbi [...]
Mass claims and the distinction between jurisdiction and admissibility (Part II)
With the release of the Dissenting Opinion in Abaclat v. Agentina, we now have the benefit of a forceful critique of the majority’s decision that the Abaclat Tribunal has jurisdiction to hear the claims of over 60,000 Italian investors against Argentina under the ICSID Convention and the Argentina-Italy BIT. Professor Georges Abi-Saab’s Dissenting Opinion (the Dissent) raises a number of objections to the majority’s decision. Most importantly, it states that the Tribunal “faces two glaringly insuperable obstacles that prevent it from taking jurisdiction”. First, the investors’ security entitlements are not protected investments, in particular, because the investments were n [...]
