Energy & environment

Most investor-state disputes (ISDS) have concerned environmental matters. Corporations are using the ISDS system found in trade and investment agreements to challenge environmental policies. As of end of 2019, 41% of all ICSID cases were energy and natural resources-related.

Most well-known cases include:

• Lone Pine Resources (US) vs. Canada: the investor challenged Quebec’s moratorium on the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for natural gas. The provincial government declared the moratorium in 2011 so as to conduct an environmental impact assessment of the extraction method widely accused of leaching chemicals and gases into groundwater and the air. Case pending (NAFTA invoked).

• Bilcon (US) vs. Canada: the US industry challenged Canadian environmental requirements affecting their plans to open a basalt quarry and a marine terminal in Nova Scotia. In 2015 the ISDS tribunal decided that the government’s decision hindered the investors’ expectations. Bilcon won and received US$7 million in damages, plus interest (NAFTA invoked).

• Vattenfall (Sweden) vs. Germany: in 2007 the Swedish energy corporation was granted a provisional permit to build a coal-fired power plant near the city of Hamburg. In an effort to protect the Elbe river from the waste waters dumped from the plant, environmental restrictions were added before the final approval of its construction. The investor initiated a dispute, arguing it would make the project unviable. The case was ultimately settled in 2011, with the city of Hamburg agreeing to the lowering of environmental standards (ECT invoked).

Photo: Kris Krug / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

(March 2020)

Nasdaq | 21-Dec-2017
The legal row between Stati, his son Gabriel, two family-controlled companies and the Republic of Kazakhstan has dragged on for years in various courts.
Steel Guru | 21-Dec-2017
A British investment group has demanded USD 500 million from Russia and accused the country of state-sponsored corporate theft in a battle for control of a Siberian coal mine.
Los Andes | 15-Dec-2017
Tras el fallo del Ciadi del Banco Mundial, la Nación emitirá 2 bonos para resarcir a Electricité de France Internacional.
Express Tribune | 15-Dec-2017
Last year, Pakistan won a case against the UK-based shareholder of Progas Pakistan in the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes.
Derecho Internacional Público. Costa Rica | 11-Dec-2017
En este caso, el Tribunal decidió postergar su decisión sobre jurisdicción, hasta analizar los argumentos de fondo, en virtud de la complejidad que reviste el caso.
Reuters | 11-Dec-2017
Mongolian Copper Corporation to seek compensation through international arbitration over the Mongolian government’s alleged breach of international rules on investors’ rights.
Latin America Herald Tribune | 8-Dec-2017
Rusoro Mining Ltd. has announced that it has obtained a judgment against the Republic of Venezuela in the Superior Court of Justice in Ontario, Canada, of over US$1.3 billion.
Romandie | 7-Dec-2017
L’Equateur va verser une indemnisation de 337 millions de dollars à la compagnie pétrolière américaine Burlington, filiale de ConocoPhillips, afin de régler un litige vieux de dix ans.
The Financial | 4-Dec-2017
Under the terms of the agreement, ConocoPhillips will recover a total of $337 million from Ecuador.
Mining Weekly | 4-Dec-2017
The arbitrators agreed with the company that Peru had breached its obligations to the company under the Canada-Peru Free Trade Agreement when it expropriated the company’s Santa Ana silver project, in 2011.