Africa

African states are party to over a thousand investment agreements, the vast majority of which have been signed with non-African countries.

In 2006, Members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) (Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland) signed the SADC Finance and Investment Protocol that also includes the ISDS mechanism. Only two claims have been registered under these terms, both against Lesotho (but the governments in the region do not typically disclose such information). In 2016 amendments to the protocol were adopted. They eliminated ISDS provisions (only state-to-state arbitration remained) and narrowed the scope of investors’ rights.

In South Africa, shortly after settling a dispute with foreign mining companies over its new post-apartheid mining rules (Piero Foresti & Others case), the government began to withdraw from bilateral investment treaties (BIT) that include ISDS, arguing they belonged to a bygone era. It claimed BITs focus on the interests of investors from developed countries and do not address concerns of developing countries.

The South African government decided to develop a new model BIT and strengthen its domestic legislation in regard to the protection offered to foreign investors, such as compatibility of BIT-type protection with South African law. South Africa also sought to incorporate legitimate exceptions to investor protection where warranted by public interest considerations.

Provisions of South Africa’s new model BIT have been incorporated into SADC’s. This model sets out provisions that mitigate the risks of earlier treaties and leaves open the option for state-to-state dispute settlement in addition to investor-state dispute settlement procedures.

In 2014, voices from the Namibian government cast doubts on the correlation between foreign direct investment and investment treaties including ISDS. They argued that ISDS represented a risk for developing countries, due to important legal fees and awards which can pose a significant budgetary threat. Further, statistics show most claimants come from developed countries.

About 11% of all arbitration disputes have involved African states.

In 2013, an arbitration court ordered Libya to pay US$935 million in a dispute over a land-leasing contract for a tourism project, making it one of the largest known awards to date.

Egypt has been the fifth most targeted state worldwide with 34 registered ISDS cases against it. Tanzania has been the most targeted country in sub-Sahara Africa with six disputes, all of which were initiated by European investors.

Photo: Hansueli Krapf / CC BY-SA 3.0

(April 2020)

The East African | 28-Sep-2023
Canadian firm Winshear Gold Corp has announced the suspension of its multimillion-dollar arbitration proceedings against Tanzania over a mining license dispute dating back to 2018, saying it had reached a “conditional settlement agreement” with Dodoma.
Le Desk | 22-Sep-2023
La société espagnole réclame 407 millions d’euros au Maroc, soit pas moins de 4 milliards de dirhams.
Junior Mining Network | 22-Sep-2023
Winshear Gold Corp. reports that pursuant to the company’s arbitration case against the Republic of Tanzania, the company and Tanzania have suspended arbitration proceedings and have reached a conditional settlement agreement.
Maghreb Intelligence | 14-Sep-2023
L’entreprise de construction de Marina d’Or réclame 400 millions d’euros pour deux projets ratés de création de deux villes satellites à Rabat et Tanger.
Challenge | 5-Sep-2023
Dans le litige qui l’oppose aux autorités marocaines, l’entreprise française de gestion des déchets, Pizzorno Environnement demande jusqu’à 50 millions d’euros en guise de réparation.
Ecofin | 16-Aug-2023
La Tanzanie a demandé au CIRDI d’annuler sa décision récente obligeant son gouvernement à verser une indemnité de plus de 100 millions USD à la compagnie minière australienne Indiana Resources.
L’Economiste | 15-Aug-2023
Une entreprise française de gestion des déchets poursuit le Maroc au Centre international pour le règlement des différends relatifs aux investissements (CIRDI).
Market Screener | 10-Aug-2023
ICSID Tribunal unanimously ordered Tanzania to pay more than US$109.5million plus costs for the unlawful expropriation of the Ntaka Hill Nickel Project (India).
L’Opinion | 26-Jul-2023
Le Maroc poursuit la lutte au CIRDI où il fait face à trois groupes internationaux qui réclament des dédommagements élevés. L’affaire de « Marina d’Or » renaît de ses cendres tandis que tout le monde attend la sentence sur le litige relatif au dossier de la SAMIR.
Ecofin | 20-Jul-2023
Le CIRDI a condamné l’État tanzanien à verser 76,7 millions $ à titre de dommages à Indiana Resources pour l’avoir illégalement exproprié du projet de nickel Ntaka Hill.