The Billions Made by Lawyers When Multinationals Put Countries in the Dock
Friday, 15 January 2016 00:00 By Nick Mathiason and Claire Provost, The
Bureau of Investigative Journalism | Report
(Photo: Canadian Bills via CarpathianPrince / Shutterstock.com)
When, in June 2011, indigenous Peruvian farmers attempted to take over a
regional airport in the southern province of Chucuito, security forces
opened fire. Six protestors were killed and 30 more wounded.
Farmers said they were driven to this deadly protest by fears they would be
thrown off their land and that water supplies could be polluted if a
proposed silver mine in the remote mountains near Lake Titicaca went ahead.
The deaths triggered further violence. Fearing complete social breakdown,
the Peruvian government cancelled the Santa Ana mining concession given to
Bear Creek, a little known Canadian mining firm.
It was a famous but bloody victory for the Aymara people.
"This was an emergency measure which the government implemented as a result
of the strong social pressure and a conflict that had overflowed," José De
Echave, Peru's former deputy environment minister, told the Bureau. "It was
obvious that this project did not have the social license to operate."
But Bear Creek, the loss-making Vancouver-based company, strongly contests
this.
Losing the right to mine silver at Santa Ana was a severe blow to the firm.
This would have been an asset, the company believes, capable of producing
five million ounces a year. Even with the world silver price at a five-year
low of $14 per ounce, Santa Ana was a potentially valuable prospect.
Not only did the contract loss have severe financial implications, Bear
Creek argues, Peru's actions also violated "the fundamental tenets of legal
security, due process" and had "no justified purpose or reasonable motive."
Bear Creek claims its Santa Ana concession was terminated "to placate a
minority of political activists."
"This is a straightforward case of expropriation without compensation by the
Peruvian government and of serious violations of additional obligations
under the Canada-Peru Free Trade Agreement and international law," the
company stated.
In the ensuing four years, Bear Creek, led by Andrew Swarthout, met
government ministers and officials to broker a settlement. But no
compensation was forthcoming.
So 18 month ago, Bear Creek lodged a $522m damages claim against Peru at one
of the world's most important commercial arbitration tribunals - the
International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).
To Peru, the Bear Creek demand is out of proportion. It is resisting the
claim.
But if previous cases filed at ICSID are anything to go by, the arbitration
will take at least three years and incur legal fees that could run into tens
of millions of dollars. And if Peru loses, it will be the country's
struggling taxpayers who will pick up the tab. What's more there is no
guarantee that the judgement will be made public.
This is the world of international treaty arbitration.
Today 159 countries have signed up to the ICSID convention and the number of
cases filed here has rocketed in recent years.
In the 1990s, there were just 42 cases heard at ICSID. In the 10 years to
2009, there were 234 cases. In the last five years alone, 244 claims have
been served.
With the number of cases proliferating so fast, City firms are poised to
create a market based on international treaty and commercial arbitration
cases. The move, say financiers, will help companies fund even more claims.
The Bureau spent two months analysing the 557 cases that have been filed at
this World Bank institution since the first claim was made in 1972.
We can reveal that businesses - mostly giant corporations - have in that
time scooped damages payouts of at least $4.3bn in dozens of countries
through this controversial arbitration system.
But estimates derived from our research suggests that lawyers and experts
have pocketed over $2bn in fees from ICSID arbitration cases, most of which
centre on alleged violations of international trade treaties. Nearly half
the $2bn legal fees are picked up by taxpayers.
To companies, ICSID is a forum for ensuring the global trading system
provides security to investors if states damage their interests.
To most countries, ICSID is an unavoidable fact of life. It is the price
they pay for signing up to bilateral investment treaties. These arcane legal
documents set the ground-rules for international trade. They provide the
framework for companies and on very rare occasions, countries to seek
redress if one party acts in a way that harms their interest.
But to campaigners, the international investor-state arbitration system is
the ultimate way multinationals exert a stranglehold over sovereign states.
Through this system, they say, key pieces of environmental or tax regulation
can be undermined.
And it is companies that overwhelmingly make use of the ICSID process. Since
1972 and over 557 claims, just three countries have sued companies through
this route.
"Eye-Watering Sums"
Huge costs to countries, many of which are in poverty, are likely to
increase significantly because cases filed by companies at ICSID - a
Washington-based division of the World Bank - have now reached an all-time
high.
In the year to July 2015, a record 52 cases were registered, according to
its annual report published in September. Most involved companies in the
energy and extractive sectors.
The sizeable costs and record case loads alarm campaigners who fear a new
trade deal between the United States and the European Union, the
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), will include
provisions that will prompt a flood of similar legal actions.
John Hilary, executive director of War on Want, the campaign group, told the
Bureau there were even deeper implications for national sovereignty. He
said: "The eye-watering sums involved in investment disputes pose a real
danger to democracy. When governments are considering the introduction of
new social or environmental legislation, they are increasingly constrained
by having to worry about the implications of their actions on transnational
corporations.
"It means they are now looking over their shoulder at the potential cost of
introducing new regulations rather than concentrating solely on the public
interest."
Peru's former deputy environment minister, José De Echave, agrees. "I think
these type of instruments which are based on the chapters of investment
protection within free trade agreements are harmful to states. Their hands
are tied. They restrict countries' ability to make sovereign decisions and
improve legislation..We are currently facing investor lawsuits for more than
$7bn."
But Matthew Hodgson, a lawyer specialising in international treaty
arbitration at Allen & Overy, said: "I do not believe the system is unfairly
tilted in favour of the investor. This is reflected in the outcomes - only
a minority of investors succeed with their claims and even those who do
typically receive considerably less in compensation than they claimed."
Expensive
Companies file a claim with ICSID when they believe a government action
adversely affects their business and it has also violated a contract or an
international investment treaty.
Investment treaties tend to be signed either bilaterally between two
countries or by regional trade blocs such as the EU.
The EU in fact is currently in advanced negotiations with Myanmar over a
controversial bilateral trade agreement in which pressure was placed on the
fledgling democracy to sign up to an investor-state dispute framework. It
has attracted widespread opposition from groups representing rural
communities.
Virtually always held in secret, ICSID cases are often protracted, complex
and expensive to mount. Payouts to companies can run into the hundreds of
millions of dollars and in some cases have exceeded $1bn.
Of the 557 cases brought to ICSID since 1972, 346 have concluded. Of these,
arbitrators have made awards in 193 cases - 34% of those filed. Of those 193
cases, damages payouts were disclosed in 71, all of which were analysed by
the Bureau.
According to our research, total disclosed damages have now reached $4.3bn,
an average of £60.6m each.
The case which saw the largest payout was a $1.8bn award to US energy firm,
Occidental Petroleum in 2012. The case centred on the termination of an
agreement that had previously allowed Occidental to extract oil from the
Ecuadorian Amazon.
Ecuador terminated Occidental's licence after the firm entered into an
unauthorised joint venture with another company.
But the ICSID tribunal judged Ecuador's termination to be in violation of
the bilateral investment treaty signed between the US and Ecuador. Last
year, the $1.8bn payout was revised down to $1.1bn by an ICSID tribunal
following an appeal.
Legal Costs
As the number of cases increase, so do legal costs. Of the 193 ICSID cases
where awards have been made, approximately 40% disclosed legal costs. For
these, we found legal payouts totalled $744m.
By extrapolating that figure to all cases where awards have been made, the
Bureau estimates that total legal costs at ICSID could be in excess of
$1.8bn. If private settlements made before the conclusion of an ICSID ruling
are added in, the full total could be more than $2bn.
The case that racked up the highest legal costs was between Libananco
Holdings, a Cypriot-based corporate vehicle linked to the wealthy Uzan
family and Turkey. The case concerned Turkey's decision in 2003 to cancel
electricity producing agreements with companies linked to the Uzan family.
The claimants faced a legal bill of $24.4m while the Turkish government,
represented by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and the Istanbul-based Coşar
Avukatlik Bürosu, which won the case paid out $35.7m.
Libananco was ordered to pay $15m towards Turkey's costs which it failed to
overturn on appeal.
Costs in international treaty arbitration are so high because cases are
complex and those involved are paid by hour or by day with no time limit on
how long disputes can last. In just one case seen by the Bureau, lawyers
charged its client for 31,000 hours of work. The degree of specialism means
only a few law firms can take on cases.
Among the go-to firms are Freshfields and Allen & Overy.
Wealthy Funders
With fees to lawyers so high, third-party litigation funders are
increasingly used by companies to underwrite the cost of international
treaty arbitration.
The main companies that fund cases are Burford Capital, a fast-growing firm
listed on London's Alternative Investment Market, and New York-based
Fulbrook Capital Management, run by Selvyn Seidel.
Seidel told the Bureau that companies such as Fulbrook demand lawyers reduce
their fees when they fund their cases but are entitled to take any damage
payouts if they win a case.
With such large damage payouts, returns on cases can easily beat
conventional asset classes.
Increasingly, Seidel said, hedge funds, private equity firms and wealthy
individuals are looking to fund international treaty arbitration.
Seidel says that third-party funders of litigation are parcelling up
mainstream commercial cases and selling them to investors like financial
derivatives. Though he is not aware of international treaty arbitration
cases being sold as derivatives, he predicted they soon will be.
"As the derivative product gets more visible in the ordinary industry, it
will pour over. I have no doubt it will happen," he said.
Countries in the Dock
Today, most claims derive from the mining and energy sectors which in the
year to July 2015 accounted for 58% of all cases registered at ICSID.
Cases include:
. Ten separate company claims filed in the last year against Spain
after it made cuts to its renewable energy subsidy regime.
. A multi-billion dollar claim against Germany from Sweden's state run
electricity generating firm, Vattenfall after the country phased out its
nuclear power plants following the Fukushima disaster four years ago.
"Vattenfall is not questioning the decision to phase out nuclear power in
Germany," the company said. "But we do insist on receiving compensation for
the financial loss suffered by the company. There was simply no other way
than to indict Germany." (Vattenfall is also suing Germany at the same time
in German courts)
. Romania faces a multi-million dollar suit launched this summer by a
Canadian company over its controversial Rosia Montana mine, set to be
Europe's largest open-pit gold mine. The project is at the centre of a
long-running dispute with local communities over environmental concerns.
. El Salvador is awaiting a verdict on a $300m suit filed by a
Canadian mining company, since bought out by the Australian miner
OceanaGold, after the country refused to issue it a permit for its
controversial El Dorado mine, saying its environmental paperwork was not in
order and that it hadn't gained the rights to the land it needed for the
project.
Companies are also suing countries if they change tax policy. Vodafone, for
instance, is in the midst of a $2.6bn row with the Indian government
involving allegations of unpaid capital gains tax which the UK telecom giant
disputes.
Overall, the region which has faced the most actions in ICSID over the past
year has been Eastern Europe and Central Asia, which accounted for 17 of the
52 cases filed, or 33%. Second was Western Europe with 11 cases - but of
those 10 involved Spain and its renewable energy subsidy cut.
The Sub-Saharan Africa region saw 10 claims filed against nine separate
countries.
Major Player
As concern mounts that poor countries in particular are facing costly
corporate legal actions, a new report by campaign organisation, Trade
Justice Movement, has pinpointed UK companies as major players in the global
international arbitration landscape.
The group found that British companies are responsible for 8% of total known
cases at ICSID. This was second only to companies headquartered in the
United States, which accounted for 21% of all cases, the Bureau calculated.
TJM also notes many of the main law firms and third party funders involved
in international treaty arbitration are headquartered in the UK.
Legal battles between sovereign states and multinationals are rapidly
increasing. It means City firms are set to reap huge fees financing claims
and advising clients. Campaigners believes this all adds up to corporations
taking sovereign states to the cleaners.
Allen & Overy's Matthew Hodgson - a man who advises companies and countries
- conceded the system is "not perfect" but strongly argues it is "fair."
"Most practitioners would accept that (the system) is time-consuming and the
absence of a system of precedent can lead to conflicting decisions," he
said. "I do think, however, that it is fair and on the whole works
reasonably well. It has offered a remedy to many investors who have been
victims of serious breaches of international law that would otherwise have
gone uncured and which, under the old system, could have led to diplomatic
disputes between the host state and the investor's home state."
* This piece builds on work published in The Guardian by Claire Provost and
Matthew Kennard, who are both Bertha Fellows at the Centre for Investigative
Journalism, a separate organisation to the Bureau.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not
be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
CLAIRE PROVOST
Claire Provost is an investigative and data journalist following the money
in global development. She worked on the Guardian's Global development site
from 2010-14. She is currently a Bertha fellow at the Centre for
Investigative Journalism in London.
NICK MATHIASON
Nick Mathiason is a contributor to The Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
RELATED STORIES
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Trade Pact
By Tom Lawson, Occupy.com | News Analysis
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The Billions Made by Lawyers When Multinationals Put Countries in the Dock
Friday, 15 January 2016 00:00 By Nick Mathiason and Claire Provost, The
Bureau of Investigative Journalism | Report
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reference not valid.
. (Photo: Canadian Bills via CarpathianPrince / Shutterstock.com)
. When, in June 2011, indigenous Peruvian farmers attempted to take
over a regional airport in the southern province of Chucuito, security
forces opened fire. Six protestors were killed and 30 more wounded.
Farmers said they were driven to this deadly protest by fears they would be
thrown off their land and that water supplies could be polluted if a
proposed silver mine in the remote mountains near Lake Titicaca went ahead.
The deaths triggered further violence. Fearing complete social breakdown,
the Peruvian government cancelled the Santa Ana mining concession given to
Bear Creek, a little known Canadian mining firm.
It was a famous but bloody victory for the Aymara people.
"This was an emergency measure which the government implemented as a result
of the strong social pressure and a conflict that had overflowed," José De
Echave, Peru's former deputy environment minister, told the Bureau. "It was
obvious that this project did not have the social license to operate."
But Bear Creek, the loss-making Vancouver-based company, strongly contests
this.
Losing the right to mine silver at Santa Ana was a severe blow to the firm.
This would have been an asset, the company believes, capable of producing
five million ounces a year. Even with the world silver price at a five-year
low of $14 per ounce, Santa Ana was a potentially valuable prospect.
Not only did the contract loss have severe financial implications, Bear
Creek argues, Peru's actions also violated "the fundamental tenets of legal
security, due process" and had "no justified purpose or reasonable motive."
Bear Creek claims its Santa Ana concession was terminated "to placate a
minority of political activists."
"This is a straightforward case of expropriation without compensation by the
Peruvian government and of serious violations of additional obligations
under the Canada-Peru Free Trade Agreement and international law," the
company stated.
In the ensuing four years, Bear Creek, led by Andrew Swarthout, met
government ministers and officials to broker a settlement. But no
compensation was forthcoming.
So 18 month ago, Bear Creek lodged a $522m damages claim against Peru at one
of the world's most important commercial arbitration tribunals - the
International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).
To Peru, the Bear Creek demand is out of proportion. It is resisting the
claim.
But if previous cases filed at ICSID are anything to go by, the arbitration
will take at least three years and incur legal fees that could run into tens
of millions of dollars. And if Peru loses, it will be the country's
struggling taxpayers who will pick up the tab. What's more there is no
guarantee that the judgement will be made public.
This is the world of international treaty arbitration.
Today 159 countries have signed up to the ICSID convention and the number of
cases filed here has rocketed in recent years.
In the 1990s, there were just 42 cases heard at ICSID. In the 10 years to
2009, there were 234 cases. In the last five years alone, 244 claims have
been served.
With the number of cases proliferating so fast, City firms are poised to
create a market based on international treaty and commercial arbitration
cases. The move, say financiers, will help companies fund even more claims.
The Bureau spent two months analysing the 557 cases that have been filed at
this World Bank institution since the first claim was made in 1972.
We can reveal that businesses - mostly giant corporations - have in that
time scooped damages payouts of at least $4.3bn in dozens of countries
through this controversial arbitration system.
But estimates derived from our research suggests that lawyers and experts
have pocketed over $2bn in fees from ICSID arbitration cases, most of which
centre on alleged violations of international trade treaties. Nearly half
the $2bn legal fees are picked up by taxpayers.
To companies, ICSID is a forum for ensuring the global trading system
provides security to investors if states damage their interests.
To most countries, ICSID is an unavoidable fact of life. It is the price
they pay for signing up to bilateral investment treaties. These arcane legal
documents set the ground-rules for international trade. They provide the
framework for companies and on very rare occasions, countries to seek
redress if one party acts in a way that harms their interest.
But to campaigners, the international investor-state arbitration system is
the ultimate way multinationals exert a stranglehold over sovereign states.
Through this system, they say, key pieces of environmental or tax regulation
can be undermined.
And it is companies that overwhelmingly make use of the ICSID process. Since
1972 and over 557 claims, just three countries have sued companies through
this route.
"Eye-Watering Sums"
Huge costs to countries, many of which are in poverty, are likely to
increase significantly because cases filed by companies at ICSID - a
Washington-based division of the World Bank - have now reached an all-time
high.
In the year to July 2015, a record 52 cases were registered, according to
its annual report published in September. Most involved companies in the
energy and extractive sectors.
The sizeable costs and record case loads alarm campaigners who fear a new
trade deal between the United States and the European Union, the
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), will include
provisions that will prompt a flood of similar legal actions.
John Hilary, executive director of War on Want, the campaign group, told the
Bureau there were even deeper implications for national sovereignty. He
said: "The eye-watering sums involved in investment disputes pose a real
danger to democracy. When governments are considering the introduction of
new social or environmental legislation, they are increasingly constrained
by having to worry about the implications of their actions on transnational
corporations.
"It means they are now looking over their shoulder at the potential cost of
introducing new regulations rather than concentrating solely on the public
interest."
Peru's former deputy environment minister, José De Echave, agrees. "I think
these type of instruments which are based on the chapters of investment
protection within free trade agreements are harmful to states. Their hands
are tied. They restrict countries' ability to make sovereign decisions and
improve legislation..We are currently facing investor lawsuits for more than
$7bn."
But Matthew Hodgson, a lawyer specialising in international treaty
arbitration at Allen & Overy, said: "I do not believe the system is unfairly
tilted in favour of the investor. This is reflected in the outcomes - only a
minority of investors succeed with their claims and even those who do
typically receive considerably less in compensation than they claimed."
Expensive
Companies file a claim with ICSID when they believe a government action
adversely affects their business and it has also violated a contract or an
international investment treaty.
Investment treaties tend to be signed either bilaterally between two
countries or by regional trade blocs such as the EU.
The EU in fact is currently in advanced negotiations with Myanmar over a
controversial bilateral trade agreement in which pressure was placed on the
fledgling democracy to sign up to an investor-state dispute framework. It
has attracted widespread opposition from groups representing rural
communities.
Virtually always held in secret, ICSID cases are often protracted, complex
and expensive to mount. Payouts to companies can run into the hundreds of
millions of dollars and in some cases have exceeded $1bn.
Of the 557 cases brought to ICSID since 1972, 346 have concluded. Of these,
arbitrators have made awards in 193 cases - 34% of those filed. Of those 193
cases, damages payouts were disclosed in 71, all of which were analysed by
the Bureau.
According to our research, total disclosed damages have now reached $4.3bn,
an average of £60.6m each.
The case which saw the largest payout was a $1.8bn award to US energy firm,
Occidental Petroleum in 2012. The case centred on the termination of an
agreement that had previously allowed Occidental to extract oil from the
Ecuadorian Amazon.
Ecuador terminated Occidental's licence after the firm entered into an
unauthorised joint venture with another company.
But the ICSID tribunal judged Ecuador's termination to be in violation of
the bilateral investment treaty signed between the US and Ecuador. Last
year, the $1.8bn payout was revised down to $1.1bn by an ICSID tribunal
following an appeal.
Legal Costs
As the number of cases increase, so do legal costs. Of the 193 ICSID cases
where awards have been made, approximately 40% disclosed legal costs. For
these, we found legal payouts totalled $744m.
By extrapolating that figure to all cases where awards have been made, the
Bureau estimates that total legal costs at ICSID could be in excess of
$1.8bn. If private settlements made before the conclusion of an ICSID ruling
are added in, the full total could be more than $2bn.
The case that racked up the highest legal costs was between Libananco
Holdings, a Cypriot-based corporate vehicle linked to the wealthy Uzan
family and Turkey. The case concerned Turkey's decision in 2003 to cancel
electricity producing agreements with companies linked to the Uzan family.
The claimants faced a legal bill of $24.4m while the Turkish government,
represented by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and the Istanbul-based Coşar
Avukatlik Bürosu, which won the case paid out $35.7m.
Libananco was ordered to pay $15m towards Turkey's costs which it failed to
overturn on appeal.
Costs in international treaty arbitration are so high because cases are
complex and those involved are paid by hour or by day with no time limit on
how long disputes can last. In just one case seen by the Bureau, lawyers
charged its client for 31,000 hours of work. The degree of specialism means
only a few law firms can take on cases.
Among the go-to firms are Freshfields and Allen & Overy.
Wealthy Funders
With fees to lawyers so high, third-party litigation funders are
increasingly used by companies to underwrite the cost of international
treaty arbitration.
The main companies that fund cases are Burford Capital, a fast-growing firm
listed on London's Alternative Investment Market, and New York-based
Fulbrook Capital Management, run by Selvyn Seidel.
Seidel told the Bureau that companies such as Fulbrook demand lawyers reduce
their fees when they fund their cases but are entitled to take any damage
payouts if they win a case.
With such large damage payouts, returns on cases can easily beat
conventional asset classes.
Increasingly, Seidel said, hedge funds, private equity firms and wealthy
individuals are looking to fund international treaty arbitration.
Seidel says that third-party funders of litigation are parcelling up
mainstream commercial cases and selling them to investors like financial
derivatives. Though he is not aware of international treaty arbitration
cases being sold as derivatives, he predicted they soon will be.
"As the derivative product gets more visible in the ordinary industry, it
will pour over. I have no doubt it will happen," he said.
Countries in the Dock
Today, most claims derive from the mining and energy sectors which in the
year to July 2015 accounted for 58% of all cases registered at ICSID.
Cases include:
. Ten separate company claims filed in the last year against Spain
after it made cuts to its renewable energy subsidy regime.
. A multi-billion dollar claim against Germany from Sweden's state run
electricity generating firm, Vattenfall after the country phased out its
nuclear power plants following the Fukushima disaster four years ago.
"Vattenfall is not questioning the decision to phase out nuclear power in
Germany," the company said. "But we do insist on receiving compensation for
the financial loss suffered by the company. There was simply no other way
than to indict Germany." (Vattenfall is also suing Germany at the same time
in German courts)
. Romania faces a multi-million dollar suit launched this summer by a
Canadian company over its controversial Rosia Montana mine, set to be
Europe's largest open-pit gold mine. The project is at the centre of a
long-running dispute with local communities over environmental concerns.
. El Salvador is awaiting a verdict on a $300m suit filed by a
Canadian mining company, since bought out by the Australian miner
OceanaGold, after the country refused to issue it a permit for its
controversial El Dorado mine, saying its environmental paperwork was not in
order and that it hadn't gained the rights to the land it needed for the
project.
Companies are also suing countries if they change tax policy. Vodafone, for
instance, is in the midst of a $2.6bn row with the Indian government
involving allegations of unpaid capital gains tax which the UK telecom giant
disputes.
Overall, the region which has faced the most actions in ICSID over the past
year has been Eastern Europe and Central Asia, which accounted for 17 of the
52 cases filed, or 33%. Second was Western Europe with 11 cases - but of
those 10 involved Spain and its renewable energy subsidy cut.
The Sub-Saharan Africa region saw 10 claims filed against nine separate
countries.
Major Player
As concern mounts that poor countries in particular are facing costly
corporate legal actions, a new report by campaign organisation, Trade
Justice Movement, has pinpointed UK companies as major players in the global
international arbitration landscape.
The group found that British companies are responsible for 8% of total known
cases at ICSID. This was second only to companies headquartered in the
United States, which accounted for 21% of all cases, the Bureau calculated.
TJM also notes many of the main law firms and third party funders involved
in international treaty arbitration are headquartered in the UK.
Legal battles between sovereign states and multinationals are rapidly
increasing. It means City firms are set to reap huge fees financing claims
and advising clients. Campaigners believes this all adds up to corporations
taking sovereign states to the cleaners.
Allen & Overy's Matthew Hodgson - a man who advises companies and countries
- conceded the system is "not perfect" but strongly argues it is "fair."
"Most practitioners would accept that (the system) is time-consuming and the
absence of a system of precedent can lead to conflicting decisions," he
said. "I do think, however, that it is fair and on the whole works
reasonably well. It has offered a remedy to many investors who have been
victims of serious breaches of international law that would otherwise have
gone uncured and which, under the old system, could have led to diplomatic
disputes between the host state and the investor's home state."
* This piece builds on work published in The Guardian by Claire Provost and
Matthew Kennard, who are both Bertha Fellows at the Centre for Investigative
Journalism, a separate organisation to the Bureau.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not
be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
Claire Provost
Claire Provost is an investigative and data journalist following the money
in global development. She worked on the Guardian's Global development site
from 2010-14. She is currently a Bertha fellow at the Centre for
Investigative Journalism in London.
Nick Mathiason
Nick Mathiason is a contributor to The Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
Related Stories
Corporate Tribunals Pose Biggest Hurdle to Europe's Vote on Transatlantic
Trade Pact
By Tom Lawson, Occupy.com | News Analysis
Show Comments
