India inked an Investment Cooperation and Facilitation Treaty with Brazil – the first one after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Government in December 2015 approved a new template for such bilateral pacts.
When Vietnam signalled it would claim the tax due, oil giant ConocoPhillips issued a pre-emptive legal strike using an arbitration process under the UK-Vietnam bilateral investment treaty.
The energy company Vattenfall is demanding compensation from the Federal Republic of Germany. The costs for the arbitration proceedings could exceed 20 million euros this year.
Despite debates about crisis in investment treaty arbitration, most emerging market economies are concluding BITs that provide for ISDS and emerging market multinational companies appear to welcome ISDS.
Australian mining company Indiana Resources has become the second company in a week to declare a dispute with the Tanzanian government over repossessed retention licences.
India has a faced a number of claims from foreign investors over the years under the BIT regime. It is presently engaged in over 20 investor-State disputes, with a number of them revolving around retrospective tax claims.