Curtis Secures Two Decisive Victories for Libya's National Oil Corporation

Curtis has secured two comprehensive wins for its client, Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC), in a pair of ICC arbitrations in which Trasta Energy Limited and the Libyan Emirati Refining Company (Lerco), asserted claims of over US$1 billion.

Trasta and Lerco filed claims against NOC separately in 2013. In November 2016, an ICC tribunal comprising Klaus Reichert, Zachary Douglas QC and James Castello, issued a decision resulting in Trasta’s withdrawal of all of its claims, totaling more than US$175 million. On January 5 of this year, a second ICC tribunal chaired by Andreas Reiner and including co-arbitrators Jacques Sales and Ian Glick QC, dismissed all of Lerco’s monetary claims and awarded NOC over US$116 million, plus interest, in respect of NOC’s counterclaims. Both awards constitute decisive victories for NOC, which stood to lose more than US$10 billion had Lerco prevailed on its pricing claims under a long-term crude oil supply agreement.

The Curtis team that represented NOC in both cases included New York partners Joseph D. Pizzurro, Matias Vega and Robert Garcia, as well as associates Mohannad El-Murtadi and Elena Rizzo.

The ICC Tribunals’ decisions for both cases were announced in a press statement issued by Libya’s National Oil Corporation and have also been covered by Global Arbitration Review.