Premium article - November 25, 2016
A German-Austrian energy consortium says it has prevailed in a €1.2 billion ICC dispute with subsidiaries of Japan's Hitachi group over the construction of a power plant on the Rhine, though the size of the award has been contested. Hailing the result as a "great success", Germany's STEAG and Austria's EVN announced today that an arbitral tribunal had upheld claims worth €200 million brought by their jointly owned project company SEK against Hitachi Power Europe and its affiliates. However,...
Premium article - November 23, 2016
A former Russian politician's worldwide assets have been frozen after a Los Angeles court ruled that his "pattern of avoidance and concealment" would prevent his one-time business partner from successfully enforcing a US$84 million LCIA award in a dispute over a Moscow mall. In a judgment on 14 November, the US District Court for the Central District of California froze up to US$115.6 million of assets belonging to Ashot Yegiazaryan, the former deputy of the lower house in the Russian Duma,...
Premium article - November 23, 2016
SIAC has become the third international arbitration institution in the past year to publish information on the average costs and duration of arbitration. Katherine Proctor, legal director at Clyde & Co, broadly compares the data concerning cases under SIAC's 2013 rules with recent data released by the LCIA and the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce. SIAC's costs and duration study was released on 10 October, following similar studies released by the LCIA in November 2015...
Premium article - November 22, 2016
An ICC tribunal has granted Turkish state pipeline company BOTAŞ a retroactive cut in the price of gas from Iran worth several billion dollars while ordering it to pay part of the Iranian side's legal and arbitration costs. In a final award dated 9 November, a Geneva-seated tribunal chaired by Belgian arbitrator Bernard Hanotiau granted BOTAŞ a 13.3% reduction in the price of natural gas bought since March 2012 under a long-term agreement with the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC). BOTAŞ had...
Premium article - November 21, 2016
The Swiss Chambers' Arbitration Institution has elected a new president and members for its court, as it marks 500 years of Swiss neutrality, 150 years of documented arbitration services by the Swiss chambers and the 1,000th case under the Swiss rules. Gabrielle Nater-Bass, a member of the SCAI Arbitration Court since 2007, took over as president of the court on 10 November, replacing Lalive partner Phillip Habegger. She will perform the role for the next three years. A partner at Homburger...
Premium article - November 16, 2016
France's supreme administrative court has ruled for the first time on its power to review international arbitration awards arising from public contracts, partially setting aside an ICC award relating to a liquefied natural gas terminal on the country's Mediterranean coast. In a decision on 9 November, the Conseil d'État ruled that a Paris-seated ICC tribunal violated a mandatory rule of public law when it dismissed part of a claim by Fosmax, a subsidiary of French power utility Engie, against...
Premium article - November 16, 2016
A Singapore court has ruled that the principle of separability did not give a sole arbitrator jurisdiction to hear a dispute in a case where an ICC clause appeared in a contract for the sale of shares that was never executed. In an anonymised judgment on 9 November, Judge Steven Chong of the High Court rejected arguments that a foreign company and bank had concluded a freestanding arbitration agreement in 2013 before winding up negotiations for the sale of shares. Judge Chong said that...
Premium article - November 14, 2016
The daughter of Indian property tycoon Niranjan Hiranandani has persuaded a Dubai court to freeze assets belonging to her brother worldwide, months after an LCIA India tribunal ordered him and her father to pay US$60 million in damages for breach of a real estate development agreement. Priya Hiranandani Vandrevala has told press that a court of the Dubai International Financial Centre, a 100-acre free zone in Dubai, agreed to freeze up to US$80 million assets belonging to her brother Darshan...
Premium article - November 11, 2016
Canadian mining company First Quantum - familiar from its multibillion dollar ICC and ICSID claims against the Democratic Republic of the Congo - is facing a claim by a Zambian government-owned entity that alleges it received insufficient interest on payments related to Africa's largest copper mine. A press release on First Quantum's website says that it received a notice of arbitration on 27 October from ZCCM - a copper mining company which is 92% owned by the Zambian government. According...
Premium article - November 09, 2016
A marine technology firm has been granted leave to appeal the Singapore High Court's ruling that a counterparty validly exercised its unilateral right not to arbitrate their dispute over works on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. In a decision dated 31 October, the High Court rejected an application by Singaporean technology firm Wilson Taylor to stay a lawsuit brought against it by German-owned engineering group Dyna-Jet and move the dispute to arbitration. The court ruled that...