Most-Favoured-Nation Clauses, or MFN Clauses, figure in the vast majority of investment protection treaties. They are intended to ensure “that a host country extends to the covered foreign investor and its investments, as applicable, treatment that is no less favourable than that which it accords to foreign investors of any third country.”[1] By according such […]
Lost Profits in Investment Arbitration
It is common in investment arbitration that investors seek to recover the profits they claim to have lost as a consequence of one or more internationally wrongful acts perpetrated by a host State of foreign investment. Historically, in assessing damages there has been a distinction between damnum emergens (actual losses) and lucrum cessans (loss of […]
How to File an ICSID Request for Arbitration
The filing of a Request for Arbitration before the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Dispute (the “Centre” or the “ICSID”) is a crucial and relatively straightforward step. In 2019, the ICSID Secretary-General received 39 requests for arbitration.[1] Almost all arbitration rules, including the ICSID Arbitral Rules,[2] provide that a party wishing to […]
Coronavirus (COVID-19) and Courts: Moving from Litigation to Arbitration?
The global difficulties caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19), various State measures imposing restrictions on the movement of people, social distancing and complete lockdowns, while necessary to protect health, are inevitably having an impact on litigation in national courts, globally. In certain countries courts have had to limit, or to even entirely close, their operations due […]
How to Reduce the Overall Cost of Investment Treaty Arbitration to Less than USD 1 Million
Investment treaty arbitration has various flaws, but one flaw that is acknowledged by both foreign investors and States who use the dispute resolution system is that, in practice, it can be incredibly expensive. The costs of investment treaty arbitration can be unbearable for certain States, who have far better uses for public funds, and they […]