International Arbitration Newsletter - April 2021 | Regional Overview: Middle East and Africa

IRAQ

Iraq to join the New York Convention

Iraq will become the 168^th signatory of the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards after the Iraqi parliament in Baghdad passed the Law on the Accession of the Republic of Iraq to the New York Convention on 4 March 2021. Ratification will be complete when this legal instrument is published in the nation´s official gazette.

Due to the fact that it is one of the countries with the largest oil reserves in the world, Iraq is considered to be one of the most important additions to the convention as there could be a myriad of future investments in the country’s vast natural resources once the political and economic situation stabilises in the region, which has been ravaged by war in recent decades.

Kenya

Italian investors launch ICC arbitration against Kenya

Two Italian construction companies, CMC Di Ravenna and Itinera, have launched a US $ 114 million London-seated ICC arbitration against Kenya over the cancellation of the construction of two controversial dam projects that have given rise to criminal proceedings implicating a former Kenyan minister.

CMC and Itinera had constituted a joint venture that had signed contracts subject to Kenyan law and understood to be worth up to US $ 500 million to build two dams in western Kenya. The investors filed their claim after the Kenyan government decided to cancel both construction agreements following an investigation by the Kenyan police into the payments received by the Italians before the works had even started.

This investigation has touched both Italian directors and Kenyan officials, including the former finance minister who lost his job after being charged with corruption.

TURKEY

Mining company to sue the Turkish state

Alamos Gold, a Canadian mining company listed in the Toronto and New York stock exchanges, has announced that its Dutch subsidiaries will commence a US $ 1 BIT claim against Turkey over the state’s refusal to renew the investor’s licences in a gold mine that has faced opposition from environmental protesters who accuse Alamos of using cyanide.

This new investment arbitration is one of the four pending ICSID claims Turkey is now facing. This one will be conducted under the Netherlands-Turkey BIT and, according to Alamos, concerns the Turkish government’s alleged refusal to grant a “routine renewal” of a series of mining licenses, which, Alamos say, will result in the loss of over half a billion dollars in future economic benefits to Turkey and thousands of jobs within the country.

Alamos states that the project has been shut down for 18 months “in a manner without precedent in Turkey” and argues that the environmental protests are based on politically driven misinformation.