The Energy Charter Treaty and the Protocol were signed in December 1994 to promote international investment in the energy sector. On 16 April 2024, Spain gave written notice of its decision to withdraw from the ECT and on 14...more
Honduras denounced the ICSID Convention via a written notice received by the World Bank on February 24, 2024. Under Article 71 of the ICSID Convention, such denunciations take effect six months from the date of receipt of the...more
The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes ("ICSID") has announced that the World Bank received a written notice of denunciation of the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States...more
Some readers will be familiar with the many claims made against Spain for the alleged violation of its obligations to foreign investors under the Energy Charter Treaty (the ECT). In May 2023, the English Commercial Court...more
Investor-State arbitration is designed to protect investors from unfair conduct by foreign governments. The quintessential example of a violation is an unlawful factory expropriation (e.g., a State taking over an oil refinery...more
The tribunal in Green Power v. Kingdom of Spain declined jurisdiction, finding that the parties had not validly consented to arbitration under the Energy Charter Treaty. A tribunal seated in Sweden has become the first...more
Learn more about the changes to improve transparency and efficiency in the amended ICSID Rules, which go into effect July 1, 2022. Approved by the ICSID Administrative Council on March 21, 2022, the amended ICSID Rules will...more
The first amendments to the ICSID Rules since 2006 will be available for use from July 2022 onward, bringing greater transparency to the process and offering clearer guidance on key issues such as allocation of costs and...more
On February 7th, 2022, the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) published the latest edition of its Caseload Statistics, confirming the strong demand for ICSID Arbitration despite challenges...more
The study examines over 400 investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) cases conducted under ICSID, UNCITRAL and other arbitration rules and over 70 ICSID annulment decisions. It provides a comprehensive analysis of how long...more
The last few weeks have seen a raft of new investor-state arbitrations under the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), including the first known investor-state claim against the European Union (EU) itself. These claims largely arise...more
The Situation: The Netherlands has 79 bilateral investment treaties ("BITs") in place with non-EU countries. On March 22, 2019, the Dutch government published a new model BIT ("2019 Model") as a template for negotiating new...more
Investors in the water industry in the UK are well advised to consider if their shareholding structure affords them appropriate investment treaty protection and access to investment arbitration in the event of possible...more
Como lo informó previamente Holland & Knight, el Secretario de Economía de México, Ildefonso Guajardo, firmó la adhesión de México al Convenio del Centro Internacional de Arreglo de Diferencias Relativas a Inversiones...more
As Holland & Knight reported earlier, Mexico's Secretary of Economy Ildefonso Guajardo signed Mexico's accession to the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) Convention. (See Holland & Knight's...more
Energy and Finance Sectors Drive Growing International Arbitration Caseloads - International arbitration case filings are surging and show no signs of letting up, according to recent reports from the world’s leading...more
In November 2017, S&P Global Ratings declared Venezuela in default after it failed to make a $200 million coupon payment on its sovereign bonds. Many saw this coming. Since 2014, the country has been mired in a recession that...more
On 13 November 2017, it was confirmed that Venezuela had defaulted on its sovereign debt after failing to meet the deadline for payment of US$200m of interest on its sovereign bonds due in 2019 and 2024.1 It is expected...more
An update, if not an epilogue, to the Hydro v. Albania saga. As described in our prior post, the ICSID arbitration tribunal in that case had imposed interim measures directing the Albanian government to suspend its...more
The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) tribunal recently released its decision in Philip Morris v. Uruguay, holding that tobacco control regulations implemented by a state to protect public...more
International investment arbitration – also known as investment treaty arbitration or investor-State arbitration – is a procedure whereby foreign investors may seek a binding adjudication of claims against host States that...more