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Curtis Announces New Partners and Counsels Across Offices in Spring 2024
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Counsel Mohannad A. El Murtadi Suleiman Addresses “Africanization” of International Investment Law
Event 18 Aug. 2023
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Curtis Recognized for Excellence in Arbitration in Chambers Latin America Guide 2025
Event 22 Aug. 2023
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Curtis Welcomes Senior Saudi Advisor, Dr. Majed Alotaibi, to its Riyadh Office
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Fernando Tupa to Speak on Indirect Expropriation at Investment Arbitration Seminar organized by the Instituto Peruano de Arbitraje
News 09 Nov. 2021
Law360 quoted Partner Simon Batifort in an article published on November 4, entitled, “Critics Take Aim at ‘Dead Wrong’ Decision in Colombia Case.” The article focuses on the ICSID tribunal’s September ruling in favor of Eco Oro Minerals Corp. in its international arbitration case against Colombia.
In the article, Mr. Batifort said, “The treaty at issue in Eco Oro was not one of the old-generation bilateral investment treaties that’s just a few pages long and has a lot of areas of ambiguity and silence on key issues…The treaty between Colombia and Canada, that’s a comprehensive free trade agreement with a lengthy investment chapter that contains many limitations that you don’t find in traditional old-generation [bilateral investment treaties].”
“We’ve been telling our clients, ‘Be careful with these treaties. There’s a tendency for arbitrators to interpret them expansively,’ and then you still have negotiators who include [investor-state dispute settlement] in their treaties”… With the Eco Oro case, “we see that even with an express exception, where the tribunal did not dispute that the measures fell within it, they found a way to get around it. It vindicates what we've been saying about the dangers of this mechanism.”
“In a way,” Batifort added, the decision “sends the wrong message to states that have had enough with expansive interpretations of investment treaties. It’s telling them that no matter how clear they make their intention in the treaty, there’s always a risk that tribunals will find a way to render a decision that circumvents that intention and that’s favorable to the claimant.”
International Arbitration
Sovereign Representation
Simon Batifort
Partner
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+32 2 313 37 31
New York
+1 212 696 6000
Paris
+33 1 42 68 72 00
Simon Batifort Speaks on IISD Roundtable on Eco Oro v. Colombia
Simon Batifort Teaches at FIAA International Arbitration Advocacy Workshop
Simon Batifort Lectures at Queen Mary Executive Course on International Investment Law and Arbitration
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