How Companies Sue Developing States Through Western Europe

Persbericht

Amsterdam, 18 december 2015

How companies sue developing states through Western Europe

Many people fear TTIP, because it could enable foreign companies to sue against decisions of a country. However, the strange thing is that Western Europe is already a hub in this mechanism, called ISDS, giving rise to billion dollar claims against poorer countries.Research by Dutch journalists shows that The Netherlands have become claim paradise number 1.

Number of claims have exploded
ISDS (Investor-State Dispute Settlement) can be described as a kind of privatized court. Foreign investors who feel unfairly treated by a host state, can file a claim before an arbitration tribunal. At least, if this country has signed an investment treaty with the home state of the investor.Since 2005 the number of claims have exploded, which is a worrying trend for developing countries. Until 2014 a total of 629 ISDS cases have been opened worldwide.

Claims by a Western European investor

Western Europe has become the hub for ISDS (also known as investment arbitration). In 2014, more than half of all the claims were filed by a Western European investor. 16 percent of all the claimants were from the Netherlands, surpassing the United States. However, our data show that more than two-thirds of all Dutch claims have actually been filed by so-called mailbox companies, using the Netherlands for its attractive network of investor-friendly investment treaties.

Interactive map

The world of investment arbitration is very intransparent. Many details are hard to find, even when cases are made public. Journalists working for the Dutch magazinesOneWorldandDe Groene Amsterdammerhave done extensive research in the past months, resulting in different stories about the hidden world of ISDS. The stories are accompanied by an interactive map, showing all ISDS claims ever filed against a state. The database behind this map contains information about the disputes, the awards and the members of the tribunals.

Video about development ISDS
The journalists have also made a video showing how ISDS has developed since the early nineties. The numbers clearly show how a select group of elite arbitrators is being assigned again and again. Just fifteen arbitrators have been involved in more than 60 percent of all the cases. They are all from Western countries, but the million or even billion dollar fines are mainly for developing states and Eastern European states.

On the websitewww.aboutisds.orgOneWorld presents the map (which can be embedded on your website) with background articles. In the coming few days we will publish case studies from the perspective of Indonesia, Venezuela and Uganda, followed by a longread about the men behind ISDS.

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For more information, please contact Frank Mulder or Eva Schram.

Frank Mulder:/ +31-618409284

Embedding the map in your own website can be done by copy-pasting the following code in your html-editor. Please attribute the map to the authors and link back towww.aboutisds.org.

Code:

iframe src="http://teamdata.oneworld.nl/projects/isds/bewegingskaart/" width="100%" height="600" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"</iframe

Eva Schram:/ +31-630921892

LINKS

Website about ISDS: www.aboutisds.org

Youtube video explaining ISDS:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZhSBoZwBdQ

Interactive map: http://teamdata.oneworld.nl/projects/isds/movementmap-respondents/