Tag Archives: NAFTA

Investor Arbitration – Unease Continues

Further to my post below (23 March 2015), there is growing concern in well-informed legal and public policy circles over the recent Bilcon v. Canada arbitration award under NAFTA Chapter 11. These concerns are fueling opposition to investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) as constituted in the NAFTA and a wide array of other investment treaties, with… Read More »

Canada Loses Another Investment Dispute under NAFTA

A NAFTA arbitration panel has decided against Canada in a long-standing investment dispute over a large coastal quarry and marine project in Nova Scotia that had been turned down over environmental and social concerns (Clayton/Bilcon v. Canada). A majority of the panel said that Canada and Nova Scotia breached the minimum standard of treatment under… Read More »

ISDS Redux: Canada Loses – But Very Little

It’s been reported that a NAFTA investment dispute panel has ordered Canada to pay $17 million in compensation to Exxon-Mobil and Murphy Oil due to changes to the  to the Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board Guidelines governing offshore oil and gas development on the continental shelf off Newfoundland and Labrador. The award isn’t public as yet, but… Read More »

Investor Arbitration and Public Regulation

On August 27, 2014, a NAFTA panel dismissed a claim by the Canadian pharmaceutical company, Apotex Inc., that had argued that the US government had breached the non-discrimination clauses in the Agreement by issuing an Import Alert over the company’s Canadian drug manufacturing processes. In 2008 -2009. the US Food and Drug Administration had inspected… Read More »