Topic: Conflict of interest

A company owned by Angolan billionaire Isabel dos Santos has lost a final appeal in the French courts relating to a US$646 million award, failing on arguments that the ICC was wrong to appoint all five members of the tribunal itself or that an arbitrator failed to disclose potential conflicts.

15 November 2022

Venezuela has successfully challenged Wolfgang Peter as arbitrator in an investment treaty case after raising concerns he could be influenced by the views of his Peter & Kim colleague Pierre Tercier in a similar dispute.

12 October 2022

A Spanish electricity company has failed to disqualify German arbitrator Inka Hanefeld from chairing an ICSID claim against Argentina over her failure to disclose having sat on another panel with the state’s expert.

12 September 2022

A Spanish contractor has failed in a renewed bid to overturn a US$40 million ICC award over a Peruvian refinery on the basis that two members of its counsel team joined the opposing side’s law firm while the arbitration was pending – as a separate dispute over a US$1 billion project in Algeria gets underway.

27 July 2022

A Brazil v Rest of the World football match organised as part of the ICCA Congress in Rio de Janeiro over a decade ago has been cited as part of a failed bid to annul an award in a €70 million ICC dispute, after it was argued that Italian arbitrator Stefano Azzali should have disclosed he played in the game alongside one of the lead counsel.

22 June 2022

In a keynote speech at GAR Live London, Lord Mance gave an overview of problems affecting international arbitration in London, including how to deal with arbitrator conflicts of interest and confidentiality following the UK Supreme Court decision in Halliburton v Chubb; and "the outside world... making itself felt" through state-imposed sanctions.

17 May 2022

A NAFTA tribunal has disqualified a Canadian government lawyer from defending the state in a US$2.5 billion arbitration because of her former role at the claimants’ prospective third-party funder.

25 March 2022

South Korean arbitrator Kap-You (Kevin) Kim has resigned from an ICSID committee hearing Venezuela’s bid to annul a US$9 billion award held by ConocoPhillips after disclosing that he is working alongside the US oil company’s counsel in an unrelated case.

23 March 2022

After the Paris Bar Council cleared him of an alleged conflict of interests relating to work at his old firm Jones Day, international arbitration practitioner Michael Bühler is facing a novel effort to reopen the allegation in the French courts.

10 December 2021

A French-Italian consultant is fighting to overturn her conviction on fraud charges over her work on an enforcement matter against Equatorial Guinea – a saga that has also led to an ICC award finding she was wrongly deprived of a success fee.

10 December 2021