Clark Hill’s International Arbitration group has extensive experience representing States and international companies in commercial and investment arbitration in Latin America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. We have assisted sovereign States and their instrumentalities states and major international corporations in relation to disputes arising out of projects in virtually every geographical area of the world in the fields of oil and gas, energy, infrastructure, defense, telecommunication, media, distribution, infrastructure, mining, gambling, and banking. Among the States our group assists or has assisted are:
Argentina, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Venezuela, and Pakistan. In one of the landmark cases, members of our team represented Pakistan in one of the largest International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) cases successfully defending the country in the annulment and revision proceedings leading to the zero settlement of a USD $1.2 billion investment dispute.
Tailored Strategies for Every Client, and Practical Solutions to Complex Disputes
The group’s experience includes handling cases under the rules of the ICC, ICSID, ICSID’s Additional Facility, and United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), involving disputes arising under Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs), the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR), the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). When appropriate, our members also have served as arbitrators.
The group includes former government officials who have extensive experience assisting in the negotiation of investment agreements, such as the USMCA and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) (formerly known as Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)), and arbitration rules, such as the 2022 ICSID Arbitration Rules, and the current discussion in UNCITRAL about reforms to the Investor-State Dispute Settlement.
Sovereign States and private companies value our ability to understand their specific needs and challenges, which comes from first-hand, direct experience earned by our lawyers working in-house with global companies and sovereign States. As external counsel, we fully appreciate the importance of interacting with in-house teams to devise and implement the best possible strategy in a cost-efficient fashion. Clients praise our ability to accommodate the call for increased flexibility with attorney’s fee structures.
Clark Hill also offers clients an experienced team of attorneys who handle disputes regarding the enforcement of investment or commercial arbitral awards in the United States.
The group will review and discuss a draft code of conduct for adjudicators in international investment disputes.
In 2017, UNCITRAL commended Working Group III (WGIII) to discuss and work on a possible reform of investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS). Although WGIII comprises 60 Member States, non-Member States and international organizations may attend sessions as observers and participate in the debates.