US
| 14-Jun-2007
A landmark NAFTA decision this week dismissing allegations that Canada Post is competing unfairly has significantly restricted the rights of foreign investors to elbow their way into markets served by Crown corporations and other government enterprises.
| 12-Jun-2007
Ecuador is furiously lobbying members of Congress to extend trade preferences, set to run out at the end of the month, that are intended to counter narcotics trafficking.
FPIF | 3-May-2007
When Bolivian President Evo Morales took office in January 2006, he pledged to follow through on his campaign pledge to increase Bolivians’ share of revenues from their major source of foreign income, natural gas. International gas companies, however, threatened to sue. Previous Bolivian governments had signed a flurry of bilateral investment treaties that gave foreign investors the right to bypass domestic courts and file such lawsuits through international tribunals. Morales complained that these rules made him feel like a “prisoner” in the presidential palace.
Australia National University | 16-Apr-2007
Peter Drahos looks at the issue of dispute settlement in the gowing web of US bilateral free trade agreements, how this relates to the WTO’s dispute settlement system and the implications for developing countries.
| 9-Apr-2007
Global Gold mining company submitted its claim to the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), a body adjunct to the World Bank, against the Government of the Republic of Armenia (ROA). The Company is trying to protect its investment rights in arbitration court.
| 30-Mar-2007
Pittsburgh-based Railroad Development Corporation (RDC) has hired former US trade agreement negotiator, Regina Vargo, and filed suit against the Guatemalan government under the investor-state provisions within Chapter 10 of CAFTA.
| 22-Mar-2007
A US company mining gold in Armenia has initiated an international arbitration of its bitter dispute with Environment Minister Vartan Ayvazian whom it accuses of corruption and other violations of the law.
| 14-Mar-2007
On the morning of Tuesday, March 13, Railroad Development Corporation (RDC) filed its Notice of Intent to Submit Claims to international arbitration against the Republic of Guatemala under the Central America-Dominican Republic-United States Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).
FPIF | 18-Dec-2006
The investment rules in the Colombia and Peru trade pacts with the US deserve special scrutiny. They grant protections for private foreign investors that are virtually identical to those in NAFTA, CAFTA and myriad bilateral investment treaties signed over the past two decades. And yet these countries are being pulled on board at a time of a dramatic awakening about these rules’ potential for harm.
| 15-Aug-2006
Former Enron Corp. (ENE) water unit Azurix Corp. has been awarded $165 million against Argentina in the latest ruling on dozens of international arbitration claims brought against the country by foreign companies. A person familiar with the situation confirmed Tuesday that both parties were informed Monday of the decision by a tribunal at the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, or the ICSID.