+44 (0) 800 123 4567 No.1 Abbey Road London, W1 ECH, UK

De-immunization of russia. War Damages and Investment Arbitration

  • #MakeRussiaAccountable

    Oleg Malinevskiy, managing partner at EQUITY, made a special report on the legal "de-immunization" of russia at the III Ukrainian Arbitration Forum.

    Key messages:
  • Turning to investment arbitrations can be one of the effective ways of russia’s"de-immunization", i.e. by passing the problem of aggressor’s sovereign immunity, which stands in the way of collecting hundreds of billions of war damages.
  • Advantages of international arbitration: solving the issue of immunity (jurisdictional, executive under the question), universal procedure for consideration of cases and recognition and execution of decisions, positive practice against russia.
  • Disadvantages of this mechanism are: limitation in subject composition, limitation in territory and types of damages, price, term, implementation problems.
  • The report cites positive examples of Crimean assets where the issue of russia jurisdictional immunity has been resolved, in particular the cases of BELBEK AIRPORT, EVEREST ESTATE, LYUGZOR, NAFTOGAZ, OSHCHADBANK, PRIVATBANK, STABIL, "UKRNAFTY".
  • In addition, positive cases of non-application of sovereign immunity in the execution of arbitration decisions were analysed, in particular the cases "SEDELMAYER AGAINST RUSSIA", "EVEREST ESTATE AND OTHERS AGAINST RUSSIA" and partly (at the first stage) the case of "YUKOS".
  • An important idea of the report was the development of the institution of mass claims in investment arbitration, which could be a tool for the protection of Ukrainians who lost their investments (houses, transport, business) in the occupied territories. Such an example could be the cases cited by Oleg, ABACLAT AND OTHERS V. ARGENTINE REPUBLIC, ICSID CASE NO. ARB/07/5; AMBIENTE OFFICIO S.P.A. AND OTHERS V. ARGENTINE REPUBLIC, ICSID CASE NO. ARB/08/9; GIOVANNI ALEMANNI AND OTHERS V. THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC ICSID CASE NO. ARB/07/8; THEODOROS ADAMAKOPOULOS AND OTHERS V. REPUBLIC OF CYPRUS, ICSID CASE NO. ARB/15/49.

    Recording of the report: https://youtu.be/NrtJB8abqFg

 

2381
Oleh Malinevskiy