Mealey's International Arbitration
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November 21, 2023
Judge Denies Russia’s Motion To Dismiss Petition To Confirm $57B Award
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia federal judge denied the Russian Federation’s motion to dismiss a petition by shareholders seeking to enforce arbitral awards against Russia worth more than $57 billion, rejecting Russia’s argument that the court lacks subject matter jurisdiction due to its sovereign immunity and ordering that the case proceed to the merits.
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November 17, 2023
Nigeria Tells D.C. Circuit Tribunal Wrongly Awarded Chinese Company $70M
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Federal Republic of Nigeria writes in an appellant brief to the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that an arbitral award worth nearly $70 million in favor of a Chinese company should not be enforced under the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (the New York Convention) because the company’s contract was with a Nigerian state, not the nation itself.
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November 17, 2023
Tribunal Clarifies Breach Date In 14.5M Euro Award To Serbian Dairy Farm Investor
WASHINGTON, D.C. — An International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) tribunal issued a supplementary decision clarifying the effective breach date from which pre-award interest will accrue on 14.5 million euros in damages it previously awarded a Canadian investor for the republic of Serbia’s seizure of his shares in a dairy farm investment.
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November 17, 2023
Company Urges High Court To Review Validity Of $392M Ecuadorian Oil Award
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A California oil company filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court challenging a Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel’s affirmance of an International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR) award against it worth more than $392 million for withholding another oil company’s share of a $1 billion award against the Republic of Ecuador, arguing that the award was tainted by an arbitrator’s lack of impartiality.
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November 15, 2023
Brazilian Companies Dismiss Bid To Confirm $38M Solar Panel Award After Settlement
NEW YORK — Fourteen Brazilian companies on Nov. 14 filed in New York federal court a notice of voluntary dismissal of their petition to confirm an International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) award worth more than $38 million against a Singaporean solar panel manufacturer for failure to fulfill a solar panel sales agreement, three months after the parties reportedly reached a settlement.
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November 15, 2023
Energy Investors Ask Court To Enforce $115M ICSID Award Against Peru
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Two Singaporean electricity investors on Nov. 14 filed a petition in District of Columbia federal court seeking to confirm an International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) tribunal’s award worth more than $115 million against the Republic of Peru for enacting a “seriously arbitrary” regulation on power generation that harmed their investment.
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November 14, 2023
Creditors Say High Court Need Not Review Venezuela, Oil Company’s Alter-Ego Status
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Six creditors urge the U.S. Supreme Court not to grant a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and its state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA), writing in an opposition brief that the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals correctly found for the second time that the parties are alter egos and lack sovereign immunity from a planned auction of oil shares to enforce arbitral awards worth nearly $3 billion.
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November 08, 2023
Judge: Dubai Arbitration Center’s Replacement Bars Arbitration Of Saudi Dispute
NEW ORLEANS — A Louisiana federal judge denied a motion to dismiss or compel arbitration of a $1.3 million dispute over a Saudi oil and gas project, finding the parties’ arbitration clause unenforceable because their contract provided for arbitration before a Dubai institution the government of Dubai abolished and replaced in 2021.
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November 07, 2023
Judge Vacates Tribunal’s Addendum Slashing $4M From $10.5M Gas Well Award
HOUSTON — A Texas federal judge on Nov. 6 granted a U.S. company’s motion to partly confirm and partly vacate two arbitral awards issued in a dispute with a British Virgin Islands (BVI) entity over profits from gas wells in the Republic of Cameroon, finding as the company argued that the tribunal erred in issuing an addendum granting the BVI entity’s request to reduce its original award by more than $4 million.
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November 06, 2023
Judge Confirms Chemical Factory Award In Favor Of Dow’s German Subsidiary
NEW YORK — A New York federal judge granted an unopposed petition to confirm a negotiated arbitral award reflecting a settlement between two German entities over their dispute for approximately $7 million in costs required to replace certain equipment at a German chemical factory owned by a subsidiary of Dow Chemical and of which the other party was a tenant.
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November 03, 2023
Gabon Account Freeze Order In Pipeline Dispute Harmed Comity, 2nd Circuit Told
NEW YORK — Two Citibank entities in an appellant brief filed with the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals challenge a New York federal judge’s “unprecedented extraterritorial order” directing them to compel a Gabonese affiliate to freeze a Cameroonian pipeline company’s $151 million account pending the outcome of a shareholder arbitration, writing that the order offends comity and was issued the same day a Gabonese court unfroze the account.
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November 02, 2023
Judge OKs 7 Creditors’ Bids To Enforce $3.5B In Judgments Against Venezuela
WILMINGTON, Del. — A Delaware federal judge on Nov. 1 granted motions for writs of attachment filed by seven groups of award-creditors and bondholders seeking to enforce judgments collectively worth roughly $3.5 billion against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela as part of a planned auction, after finding that Venezuela and its state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA) are collaterally estopped from denying their alter-ego status.
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November 02, 2023
ICSID Orders Peru To Pay Singaporean Investors $115M For Energy Dispute
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) published a tribunal’s award ordering the Republic of Peru to pay more than $115 million to two Singaporean electricity investors after finding that the nation passed a “seriously arbitrary” new regulation harming their investment in power generation.
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October 27, 2023
Reinsurer’s Bid For Ex Parte TRO In Arbitration Row Is Sidelined By English Injunction
NEW YORK — A New York federal court case in which a reinsurer sought an ex parte temporary restraining order (TRO) to protect its arbitration rights has been stayed after the respondent obtained an anti-suit injunction from an English court.
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October 23, 2023
Nigeria Wins Challenge In English Court To $11B Gas Supply Award Based On Fraud
LONDON — An English judge on Oct. 23 ruled in favor of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and found that an arbitral award against it worth more than $11 billion was procured through “abuses of the arbitral process” including fraud and bribery and due to “serious irregularity” cannot be enforced in favor of an Irish-owned company that brought arbitration over a thwarted gas supply contract entered into in 2010.
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October 23, 2023
Chilean Contractor Asks Court To Confirm $139M Award Against Italian Builder
WILMINGTON, Del. — A Chilean contractor filed a petition in Delaware federal court seeking to enforce an arbitral award in its favor worth more than $139 million for a hospital construction contract dispute against an Italian construction company that acquired the bankrupt award-debtor and allegedly accepted liability for the award, writing that the court has jurisdiction based on the presence in Delaware of the Italian company’s U.S. subsidiary.
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October 23, 2023
Russia Says Dutch Advocate General’s Opinion Not Final Word On Fraud Claims
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Russian Federation filed a response brief urging a District of Columbia federal judge to disregard a recent advisory opinion of the Dutch Supreme Court’s advocate general, writing that the opinion does not strengthen the claims of shareholders seeking to enforce arbitral awards against Russia worth more than $57 billion and asserting that its claims of fraud in the underlying arbitration remain pending.
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September 27, 2023
COMMENTARY: The Approach Of Courts In England & Wales To Violations Of International Public Policy
By Leonor d’Albiousse
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October 20, 2023
ICSID Ad Hoc Committee Refuses To Annul 17.7M Euro Award Against Italy
WASHINGTON, D.C. — An International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) ad hoc committee ordered the Italian Republic to pay 807,000 euros in attorney fees and $421,000 in arbitration costs after rejecting in full its application to annul a 17.7 million euro award against it for harming German and Austrian solar power investors by rescinding incentive tariffs upon which the investors relied.
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October 20, 2023
Judge Refuses To Deem Zimbabwe’s Appeal In $264M Award Row Frivolous
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia federal judge on Oct. 19 denied two Zimbabwean plantation companies’ motion to certify as frivolous the Republic of Zimbabwe’s interlocutory appeal challenging the denial of its motions to dismiss the plantations’ petition to confirm an arbitral award against it worth more than $264 million, finding that “no binding case” controls the outcome of Zimbabwe’s appeal.
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October 20, 2023
11th Circuit: Arbitration Order ‘Is Still Final,’ So Subrogees’ Appeal Continues
ATLANTA — Denying what it construed as a motion to dismiss an appeal concerning an alleged $28 million in damages to an Algerian power plant, an 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel said, “Although the district court deferred the issue of the scope of the arbitration provisions to the arbitrator, its order is still final because it found that the provisions required it to do so.”
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October 19, 2023
11th Circuit Vacates Order Restraining $10M To Pay Hong Kong Awards
ATLANTA — An 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel vacated a ruling restraining $10 million held under a Colorado conservatorship to pay a potential judgment confirming arbitral awards issued by a Hong Kong International Arbitration Center (HKIAC) tribunal against the individual under conservatorship and his conservator for failure to repay a litigation funder, finding that the court lacked the power to restrain those funds.
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October 19, 2023
Serbia Denies Cypriot, Canadian Investors’ 30M Euro Land Use ICSID Claims
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) on Oct. 18 published the Republic of Serbia’s countermemorial raising jurisdictional and admissibility objections to claims brought against it by Cypriot and Canadian investors who contend that Serbia caused 30 million euros in damages by building traffic infrastructure on land they sought to develop, which Serbia says was within its rights.
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October 19, 2023
Split Tribunal Awards Jamaican Investor $43.5M In Dominican Landfill Dispute
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A split International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) tribunal awarded a Jamaican investor more than $43.5 million in damages against the Dominican Republic (DR) for the “indirect creeping expropriation” of his investment in an urban landfill but rejected his claims for damages based on allegedly thwarted plans to build a waste-to-energy (WTE) plant.
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October 18, 2023
U.K. Supreme Court: Mozambique Must Arbitrate Bribery Claims Against Developers
LONDON — The United Kingdom Supreme Court ruled that the Republic of Mozambique must arbitrate allegations of bribery against shipbuilding and development entities that it accuses of exposing the nation to a $2 billion liability based on arbitration clauses in the contracts the entities entered into with state-owned investment entities, despite Mozambique’s status as a non-signatory to those contracts.