The EU Parliament proposes a regulation for financial responsibility for EU-linked investor-state dispute settlement
This proposed regulation aims at clarifying the division of competence for financial responsibility between the Union and Members States when the Union or a Member State is sued by an non EU-investor in the context of investor-state dispute settlement proceedings. Following the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, foreign direct investment is included in the EU common commercial policy. Of particular importance is the Parliament’s acknowledgement of the current uncertainty relating to the inclusion of investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms in Treaties negotiated by the EU.
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The Commission’s factsheets: a declaration of faith in the EU BITs world?
The course of this year was marked by another event that ended up to be much ado about nothing, the order granted in the matter Slovakia v. Eureko by the German Federal Supreme Court according to which the proceedings before it were redundant. These proceedings, in which the Commission had intervened to support the position that the arbitral tribunal lacked jurisdiction, had been brought by the Dutch company Eureko against the Slovak Republic under the Dutch-Slovak BIT (thus an intra-EU BIT). The arbitral tribunal held that it had jurisdiction because the BIT was fully valid and had not been terminated by the Slovak Republik’s accession to the EU.
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Latest Developments Concerning European Bilateral Investment Treaties
Two major events have taken place recently regarding the situation of Bilateral Investment Treaties concluded between European Member States (“Intra-EU BITs”) and Bilateral Investment Treaties concluded between an European Member State and a State not Member of the EU (“Extra-EU BITs”). The fate of these agreements was surrounded up until now by a veil of uncertainty.
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