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

Mealey's International Arbitration

March 18, 2024
High Court Defers $392M Award Challenge After Parties Settle Oil Dispute

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on March 18 granted a joint motion to defer consideration of a U.S. oil company’s petition for a writ of certiorari challenging the affirmance of an award against it worth more than $392 million in favor of an oil investor owned by a Chinese company issued in relation to a $1 billion Ecuadorian oil dispute involving the parties, after the parties jointly moved to defer consideration citing a settlement of their dispute.
March 15, 2024
Judge OKs Arbitral Review Of Esports Players’ $120M Monopoly Claims

LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge dismissed a putative class action brought by two professional players of the video game “Call of Duty” (CoD) and one affiliated business entity against developer Activision Blizzard Inc. after the parties filed a stipulation agreeing that an international arbitral tribunal will decide the arbitrability of claims that Activision monopolized CoD-related esports.
March 14, 2024
ICSID Tribunal Dismisses 59 Renewable Energy Investors’ Claims Against Italy

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) tribunal dismissed all claims for damages against the Italian Republic brought by 59 European entities for allegedly breaching the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) by impairing their energy investments, finding that Italy’s reduction of incentive tariffs based on local governance issues did not breach the ECT.
March 12, 2024
English Justice Issues Ruling In Czech Republic’s Challenge To $350M Plasma Award

LONDON — A justice of the High Court of England Wales issued a ruling barring some objections and dismissing in part challenges the Czech Republic seeks to bring in a forthcoming trial in which it is challenging a May 2022 arbitral award ordering it to pay a Liechtenstein company and its former owner $350 million for harming their investment in a blood plasma company in the early 1990s (Czech Republic v. Diag Human SE, et al., No. CL-2022-000307CA, [2024] EWHC 503 (Comm), England and Wales High, KBD).
March 12, 2024
Split Tribunal Rejects Gold Mining Company’s Claims Against Colombia

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) on March 11 published a split tribunal’s award rejecting a Canadian gold mining company’s claims against the Republic of Colombia for allegedly causing it more than $110 million Canadian in damages by abruptly terminating its right to pursue gold mining projects within certain high mountain ecosystems.
March 12, 2024
9th Circuit Won’t Stay Mandate Pending Petition For Cert In $1.3B Award Row

SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on March 11 denied three Mauritian entities and one U.S. company’s joint motion as intervenors to stay the issuance of a mandate reversing the confirmation of an arbitral award worth more than $1.3 billion in favor of a liquidated Indian satellite company, which they sought while they petition the U.S. Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari on the issue of Ninth Circuit precedent requiring minimum contacts analysis under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA).
March 07, 2024
5th Circuit Affirms Arbitration Order In $7M Hurricane Ida Dispute

NEW ORLEANS — A Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on March 6 affirmed an order compelling arbitration of an insureds’ claims for $7 million in damages caused by Hurricane Ida and for bad faith against a group of foreign and domestic insurers that had provided it a surplus line policy.
March 05, 2024
Tribunal Rejects Dominican Republic’s Request To Reduce $43.5M Landfill Award

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) tribunal rejected a request by the Dominican Republic to reduce a $43.5 million award in favor of a Jamaican landfill investor down to as low as $5.9 million after finding “no calculation errors” that would warrant rectification of the award and ordered the Dominican Republic to pay an additional $144,000 in attorney fees and costs.
March 05, 2024
5th Circuit: Court Erred In Denying Arbitration In Hurricane Laura Coverage Suit

NEW ORLEANS — The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals determined March 4 that a lower federal court abused its discretion when it denied domestic insurers’ motion to compel arbitration and stay a coverage lawsuit arising from Hurricane Laura property damage to the insured’s Lake Charles, La., apartment complex, reversing and remanding with instructions to grant the insurers’ motion.
February 29, 2024
5th Circuit Won’t Reconsider Reversal Of $200M Award For Fatal Explosion On Vessel

NEW ORLEANS — A Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel denied a German shipowner’s petition for rehearing of its ruling reversing the confirmation in its favor of an arbitral award worth more than $200 million against a Swiss charterer for damages incurred when a fatal explosion occurred on the vessel, in a dispute the parties separately have settled.
February 29, 2024
ICSID Sets Confidentiality Rules In Supplement Maker’s $3B Claim Against Mexico

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An order setting confidentiality rules for arbitration proceedings brought against the United Mexican States by a Michigan-based company was recently published by the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), which is hearing the company’s claim for $3 billion in damages against Mexico for allegedly expropriating land on which it grew crops used to produce nutritional supplements.
February 27, 2024
English Judge Continues Injunction In Reinsurer’s Misrepresentation Row

LONDON — Ruling against a reinsurer on a question of contractual construction that involves a hierarchy or “confusion” clause, a judge of the High Court of England and Wales allowed an anti-suit injunction (ASI) to continue until a certain determination is made.
February 26, 2024
Retaliation Claims Against Panama Rejected By ICSID In Newly Published Award

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) on Feb. 23 published an arbitral award finding jurisdiction but dismissing all claims brought against the Republic of Panama by a U.S. contractor and his Puerto Rico company, which were ordered to pay Panama $4.8 million after the tribunal rejected claims that the Panamanian president launched a state campaign of retaliation to terminate their contracts.
February 26, 2024
High Court Distributes Challenge To $392M Award After Parties Announce Settlement

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court distributed a U.S. oil company’s petition for a writ of certiorari challenging the affirmance of an award against it worth more than $392 million in favor of an oil investor owned by a Chinese company issued in relation to a $1 billion Ecuadorian oil dispute involving the parties, shortly after the parties jointly moved to defer consideration citing a settlement of their dispute.
February 15, 2024
COMMENTARY: Vienna Perspective – 2024

By Veit Öhlberger and Nicol Schneider
February 23, 2024
Split Committee Annuls Dismissal Of Kuwaiti Investor’s Claim Against Iraq

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) ad hoc committee granted in part a Kuwaiti company’s application to annul an award dismissing its claim against the Republic of Iraq for harming its investment in a telecommunications company, finding that the tribunal exceeded its powers and failed to state its reasons for dismissing the investor’s claim that a regulatory order liquidating an investment agreement was improperly implemented.
February 23, 2024
Plantation Owners Seek More Time To Answer Zimbabwe’s Challenge To $264M Award

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Swiss and German owners of Zimbabwean plantations filed an unopposed motion on Feb. 22 in the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Courts of Appeals for an extension of time to file their brief responding to the Republic of Zimbabwe’s appeal challenging the denial of its motions to dismiss two petitions to confirm arbitral awards worth $264 million in favor of the owners and their plantation companies.
February 23, 2024
Mexican Filmmaker’s Estate Urges 9th Circuit To Reject Son’s Appeal Of $8.7M Award

SAN FRANCISCO — A Mexican film producer’s estate, companies and children say in an appellee brief to the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that the court should disregard arguments raised by the producer’s son and his companies challenging an $8.7 million arbitral award against them, writing that the trial court correctly found that they untimely challenged the tribunal’s jurisdiction based on allegedly forged evidence.
February 23, 2024
Judge Stays Petition After Ecuador, Texas Refinery Settle $6M Award Row

HOUSTON — A Texas federal judge on Feb. 22 granted a joint motion to stay after a Texas company and the Republic of Ecuador filed a joint motion stating that they have reached a settlement resolving Ecuador’s petition to confirm a Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) tribunal’s award against the Texas company for more than $6 million in attorney fees awarded after a contract dispute and are now preparing to “effectuate the settlement.”
February 22, 2024
Company Seeks To Enforce Award Worth More Than 5.1M Euros Against Niger

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Luxembourg investor filed a petition in District of Columbia federal court seeking to enforce an International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) award of more than 5.1 million euros and $387,000 issued more than 10 years ago against the Republic of Niger for harming its investment in operating a Nigerien airport.
February 22, 2024
10th Circuit Rejects Liberian Company’s Alter Ego Claim To Enforce Maritime Award

DENVER — A 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Feb. 21 affirmed a district court’s rejection of claims by a Liberian tanker-owner for alter ego liability against the only member of a shipping company that has not yet paid an arbitral award worth more than $2 million for a dispute over its failure in 2012 to ship oil from Venezuela.
February 21, 2024
ICSID Publishes $5M Award Against Turkey For Canceling Uranium Mining Licenses

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) published a mixed award issued in a since-settled dispute brought by an American mining company against the Republic of Türkiye, in which the tribunal found that Turkey breached a bilateral investment treaty (BIT) by canceling the company’s licenses but rejected the company’s claims for $30.5 million in damages because its mining project would never have become profitable.
February 21, 2024
Panama Canal Operator Urges High Court To Reject Arbitrator Partiality Claims

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Republic of Panama-owned instrumentality that operates the Panama Canal in a Feb. 20 brief urges the U.S. Supreme Court to deny a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by construction firms that say a $283 million award against them was tainted by the arbitrators’ nondisclosures of various professional ties, writing that any circuit split over the issue is “academic.”
February 20, 2024
Investors’ $1.4B Euro ICSID Claim Ended After German Court Bars Intra-EU Claims

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Two coal investors, one German and one Dutch, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands discontinued an arbitration brought by the investors for 1.4 billion euros in damages based on a ban of coal-powered energy plants after the highest court in Germany declared the investors’ arbitration claims impermissible under European Union law, an International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) tribunal found in an order taking note of the arbitration’s discontinuance.
February 20, 2024
9th Circuit Urged Not To Stay Mandate Pending Petition For Cert In $1.3B Award Row

SAN FRANCISCO — An Indian state-owned company filed a brief in the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals opposing a motion by intervenors to stay the issuance of a mandate reversing the confirmation of an arbitral award worth more than $1.3 billion against it while the intervenors seek review before the U.S. Supreme Court, writing that the high court is unlikely to grant certiorari on the issue of the Ninth Circuit’s precedent requiring minimum contacts analysis under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA).