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

Mealey's International Arbitration

January 12, 2023
Judge Enters $3.6M Judgment After Confirming Award In Chinese Real Estate Dispute

BALTIMORE — A Maryland federal judge entered judgment in the amount of $3,614,772.78 in favor of a Chinese national’s estate after confirming two arbitral awards for attorney fees, interest and arbitration costs that a Hong Kong tribunal issued in the estate’s favor against a former partner who resides in Maryland, but declined to order payment of prejudgment interest.
January 11, 2023
Split 10th Circuit Affirms Refusal To Vacate Award Based On ‘Finality’ Concerns

DENVER — A split 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel in a Jan. 10 consolidated opinion affirmed a District Court’s order denying a motion to vacate the court’s prior judgment confirming an arbitral award worth more than $36 million against two Mexican companies after Bolivia’s highest court annulled the award, and likewise approved the court’s ruling ordering the Mexican companies to turn over assets in Mexico to the Bolivian award-creditor.
January 10, 2023
Judge Denies Relief After EU’s High Court Blocks Payment Of Award Against Romania

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia federal judge recently denied the government of Romania’s motion for relief from three judgments ordering it to pay a confirmed arbitral award worth more than $350 million plus $1.5 million in sanctions, writing that rulings by the European Union’s highest court prohibiting payment of the award in favor of Swedish investors do not void the court’s previous judgments.
January 09, 2023
High Court Won’t Hear Choice-Of-Law Dispute In Australian Jet Contract

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 9 denied an Australian entity’s petition for a writ of certiorari seeking review over whether the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) allows federal law to apply by default to an arbitration agreement in a contract governed by state law, as the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held when applying federal rather than Georgia law to uphold an $8 million arbitral award for a jet contract dispute.
January 05, 2023
Tribunal Finds No Jurisdiction Over Beachfront Investors’ Claim Against Mexico

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) tribunal in a recent award dismissed for lack of jurisdiction claims for $80 million in damages brought against the United Mexican States by six investors from Argentina, France, Portugal and Canada for expropriating their investments in beachfront properties, finding that three investors had renounced their nationalities in exchange for Mexican citizenship and the others lacked proper title under Mexican law.
December 22, 2022
D.C. Circuit Affirms Denial Of Stay Of Award Against Moldova Despite EU Ruling

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in a Dec. 21 per curiam opinion affirmed a federal court’s refusal to stay enforcement of an arbitral award against the Republic of Moldova for an electricity contract dispute, writing that the court’s ruling contains “no error” despite the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruling that the underlying dispute was not arbitrable.
December 21, 2022
Panel Confirms $21M Award In Foraging Crops Dispute, Reverses $7M Reduction

PASADENA, Calif. — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed in part the confirmation of an arbitral award worth more than $21 million in favor of a California haymaker and its Samoan affiliate, but reversed the district court’s decision to vacate a $7 million “windfall” from its judgment, writing that despite “serious concerns about whether the arbitration award was correct” the full award must be confirmed due to “the stringent deference we owe to arbitration awards.”
December 20, 2022
Oil Rig Investors, Mexico Dispute Claims That NAFTA Breach Caused $700M In Damages

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) on Dec. 19 published post-hearing briefs filed separately by a group of U.S. investors and the United Mexican States, each disputing whether the investors have established that Mexico caused them more than $700 million in damages by expropriating their investment in breach of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) or whether the damages were caused by regular fluctuations in the oil market.
December 19, 2022
Austrian Hospital Manager Seeks To Enforce $3M Award Against Gabonese Republic

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An Austrian provider of hospital management, maintenance and training recently filed a petition asking a District of Columbia federal court to enforce an International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) tribunal’s arbitral award against the Gabonese Republic worth more than $3 million for nonpayment of hospital management contracts dating back to 2001.
December 19, 2022
Post-Settlement Dispute Was Arbitrable, Brazilian Oil Company Tells High Court

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Brazilian oil company and a U.S. subsidiary urge the U.S. Supreme Court in a recent petition for a writ of certiorari to review a debate over arbitrability that they say has divided federal circuit courts and state high courts, arguing that the Texas Supreme Court wrongly found that a global settlement agreement they entered with former joint venture partners superseded the parties’ preexisting contract containing an arbitration agreement.
December 19, 2022
BVI Entity Seeks To Enforce Hong Kong Arbitrator’s $16.6M Award Against App Maker

SAN FRANCISCO — A British Virgin Islands’ (BVI) entity filed a petition in California federal court to enforce a Hong Kong tribunal’s arbitral award against a Cayman Islands app maker for harming its investment in connection with computer fraud for which 16 of the app maker’s employees, including the founder, have pleaded guilty in Chinese court to related criminal charges.
December 16, 2022
Enforcement Action Against UAE Debtor’s Alter Egos Should Proceed, Magistrate Says

NEW YORK — A New York federal magistrate judge recommended the denial of two motions to dismiss a petition to hold several United Arab Emirates (UAE) citizens and their company liable as alter egos for an arbitral award worth more than $95 million for an aircraft lease dispute, writing that parallel proceedings in Abu Dhabi and Dubai concern different issues.
December 16, 2022
Split ICSID Tribunal Awards $100M For Peruvian Land Bonds, U.S. Company Says

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Two U.S. investment entities recently announced that in a nonpublic award, a split International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) tribunal awarded them $100 million for the Republic of Peru’s failure to provide the minimum standard of treatment to land bonds they acquired from the republic more than 50 years ago in violation of the U.S.-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement (TPA).
December 15, 2022
Peru Says ICSID Tribunal Lacks Jurisdiction Over U.S. Gas Investor’s $136.3M Claim

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Republic of Peru writes in a countermemorial recently published by the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) that a tribunal lacks jurisdiction over a U.S. investor’s claims that it expropriated his investment in a gas business, causing $136.3 million in damages, arguing that the claims are time-barred and were previously rejected by two other arbitral tribunals.
December 14, 2022
Guatemalan Contractor Urges En Banc 11th Circuit To Treat $7M Award As ‘Domestic’

ATLANTA — A Guatemalan contractor urges the en banc 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to reconsider circuit precedent and allow the consideration of “domestic grounds for vacatur” in reviewing its petition to vacate an arbitral award worth more than $7 million for a canceled hydroelectric dam project because the award was issued by a Miami-seated tribunal.
December 13, 2022
ICSID Tribunal Rejects Albania’s Request To Disqualify Arbitrator

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Addressing a question of first impression, two arbitrators recently denied the Republic of Albania’s request to disqualify a third arbitrator, who sat on the tribunal that issued a 2019 arbitral award against Albania, from sitting with them on a partially reconstituted tribunal hearing Albania’s application to revise an award ordering them to pay more than 107 million euros to a group of Italian investors.
December 13, 2022
ICSID Tribunal Refuses To Order Disclosures From Alleged Third-Party Funder

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) tribunal denied the Argentine Republic’s request that it order wide-ranging financial disclosures from a member of the counsel to a Spanish claimant who Argentina claimed is actually a third-party litigation funder behind multiple arbitration claims brought by investors against states.
December 06, 2022
Colombia’s Security Defense Was Brought In Bad Faith, Investors Tell ICSID

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A group of American investors tell an International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in a recently published rebuttal that the Republic of Colombia is using an “essential security” jurisdictional defense in bad faith against their claims for unlawful expropriation of land they purchased, despite bringing no allegations of impropriety or illegal conduct against them or the lot’s previous owners.
December 06, 2022
Company Seeks To Enforce $168M Award Against Peru For Canceled Broadband Contracts

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Peruvian company recently filed a petition in a District of Columbia federal court seeking to confirm and enforce an International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) arbitral award worth more than $168 million against the Republic of Peru and two state organs for abruptly terminating contracts with the company to set up new broadband networks through rural regions of the country and ordering them to pay off certain bonds.
December 06, 2022
Swedish-Iranian Investor Settles ICSID Claims Against United Arab Emirates

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) on Dec. 5 published a settlement agreement resolving arbitral claims brought by a Swedish-Iranian investor against the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in relation to alleged harms to his distribution business, which the parties entered after disputing the validity of the investor’s evidence that he submitted to the tribunal.
December 02, 2022
Miner Says Mexican President Ordered Quarry Shutdown After It Brought NAFTA Claims

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) on Dec. 1 published a U.S. investor’s ancillary memorial arguing that after it commenced a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) arbitration against the United Mexican States, the Mexican president began publicly harassing its subsidiary and ordered the shutdown of its last remaining quarry.
December 01, 2022
Russian Properly Brought RICO Claim Against $100M Award-Debtor, High Court Told

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Russian national in a recent brief urges the U.S. Supreme Court to deny petitions for certiorari filed by an award-debtor in California and a Monaco bank that seek to challenge Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) claims against them for conspiring to evade enforcement of an arbitral award worth more than $100 million, arguing that his foreign citizenship does not deprive him of standing to bring civil RICO claims.
December 01, 2022
U.S. Driller Says Slovak Republic Hindered Investment, Causing $568M In Damages

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) on Nov. 30 published a U.S. oil company’s memorial asserting that the Slovak Republic caused it to lose more than $568.2 million in potential profits by failing to remove protesters from a work site and imposing unnecessary regulatory requirements, thereby indirectly expropriating its investment.
November 30, 2022
BVI Entity Drops Appeal In $21.5M Award Fight Against Chinese Oil Company

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Nov. 29 dismissed a British Virgin Islands (BVI) entity’s appeal of the dismissal of its petition to confirm an arbitral award worth more than $21.5 million against a Chinese oil exploration and production company after the parties jointly stipulated to dismissal.