Work Area: Investor-state arbitration

The third edition of the Institute of Transnational Arbitration’s conference on international arbitration in the mining sector took place in Toronto last month, focusing on critical minerals, regulatory frameworks and the increasingly debated concept of the “social licence to operate”. Tom Villalón of Three Crowns in Washington DC reports.

17 April 2025

A Swiss investor has threatened Romania with a treaty claim, saying its interest in a now-bankrupt road infrastructure company was destroyed by tax decisions and asset seizures imposed by the state authorities. 

16 April 2025

Nigeria has settled its dispute with a Chinese investor in a free trade zone over a US$70 million treaty award, meaning the state has dropped its bid to have the US Supreme Court rule on the scope of sovereign immunity under the New York Convention.

16 April 2025

An Australian miner has sought to stay an arbitration it launched against Greenland and Denmark over a uranium mining ban while it challenges the measures in local courts. 

15 April 2025

An advocate-general at the Dutch Supreme Court has recommended the dismissal of Russia’s bid to revive allegations that awards now worth US$63 billion in favour of the former majority shareholders of Yukos were tainted by procedural fraud. 

14 April 2025

An ICSID committee has upheld an award requiring Venezuela to pay US$3 billion to a Spanish investor for expropriating an agribusiness group.

14 April 2025

After US president Donald Trump’s unprecedented tariff policy put the world on the brink of a global trade war, Mark Mangan and Gillian Lee of boutique firm Lindsay Francis & Mangan consider the types of disputes that could arise – and whether that includes investment treaty cases. 

10 April 2025

Colombia is facing a second ICSID claim by a pair of US investors in a troubled oil refinery upgrade project – as an investor in another dispute with the state fails in a novel request for rectification of a dissenting opinion.

09 April 2025

An ICSID tribunal has declined to hear a Georgian businessman’s US$700 million claim against Azerbaijan over alleged interference in the sale of his stake in an onshore oilfield. 

09 April 2025

ExxonMobil senior counsel Tom Sikora used a virtual appearance at Paris Arbitration Week to criticise some of the “debilitating” proposals for reform of investor-state dispute settlement being considered by UNCITRAL working group III, including curbs on shareholder claims and provisions for counterclaims. 

07 April 2025