Arbitration Watch No. 1: seven ICSID awards in cases against emerging-market states

Arbitration Watch tracks awards, annulment steps and new claims at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in cases against states in Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe and Eurasia. This first edition covers 1 September to 16 October 2026. It counts seven awards, one award recording a settlement, one decision interpreting an earlier award and five new cases. The source for each item is the case page in ICSID's database, which records what happened and when; of the awards, only those in Doups and Neltume had been published there by 17 October.

Awards

• 4 September. Gruppo Officine Piccini v. Cameroon, a construction dispute under the 1999 Cameroon-Italy investment treaty (ARB/23/21).
• 9 September. The Williams Companies and two WilPro units v. Venezuela, over gas compression and injection plants, under the Netherlands-Venezuela treaty and ICSID's Additional Facility rules (ARB(AF)/19/3).
• 10 September. Doups Holdings v. Mexico, over a metered parking system, under NAFTA and the USMCA. The tribunal found it had no jurisdiction and ordered the claimant to repay Mexico US$211,305.45 in arbitration costs, US$259,644 for its government lawyers and US$541,722.50 for outside counsel, about US$1.01 million in all, the published award shows (ARB/22/24).
• 14 September. EP Wind Project (Rom) Six v. Romania, a renewable generation dispute under the Energy Charter Treaty (ARB/20/15).
• 30 September. JLL Capital v. Honduras, a banking and financial services case under the Central American free trade agreement with Mexico, with a dissenting opinion by arbitrator Stephan Schill attached (ARB/23/3).
• 2 October. RTI Rotalin Gas Trading and Rotalin Gaz Trading v. Moldova, an oil and gas case under the Energy Charter Treaty and the Additional Facility rules (ARB(AF)/22/4).
• 12 October. Congo Mining and Midus Holdings v. Republic of Congo, over a mining concession, under the 1989 Congo-UK treaty (ARB/21/58).

In Neltume Ports v. Uruguay, the parties told the tribunal on 4 September that they had agreed to discontinue, and on 30 September it issued an award embodying their settlement under ICSID Arbitration Rule 55(2)(b) (ARB/24/14). The award is published in Spanish.

Annulment, interpretation and enforcement

• Freeport-McMoRan v. Peru: the tribunal issued its decision on interpretation of its award on 8 October, with a dissent by arbitrator Guido Santiago Tawil (ARB/20/8).
• AES v. Argentina: AES filed its counter-memorial in the annulment proceeding on 28 September, in a case registered in 2002 (ARB/02/17).
• Leshkasheli and Rosserlane v. Azerbaijan: Rosserlane filed a reply on annulment on 16 September, and the ad hoc committee issued a procedural order on 7 October (ARB/20/20).
• Von Pezold and Border Timbers v. Zimbabwe: in interpretation proceedings in both cases, Zimbabwe filed replies on 9 October on the stay of enforcement of the awards and on requests for security for costs (ARB/10/15, ARB/10/25).
• Rami Levy v. Bulgaria: the parties exchanged submissions on 23 September and 13 October on whether the stay of enforcement of the award should continue (ARB/18/47).

New claims and the docket

• 4 September. Mikalai Vinitski v. Armenia, over a share acquisition, under the Belarus-Armenia treaty and the Eurasian Economic Union treaty (ARB/26/37).
• 15 September. Petersen Energía and Petersen Energía Inversora v. Argentina, over an oil production business, under the Spain-Argentina treaty (ARB/26/38).
• 23 September. Maksim Poletaev and Solfy RUS v. Uzbekistan, over a consumer finance platform, under the 2013 Russia-Uzbekistan treaty (ARB(AF)/26/5).
• 6 October. Sopam Energie v. Mali, under a contract for the transfer of a thermal power plant (ARB/26/39).
• 6 October. Lombard North Central v. Türkiye, over a real estate project, under the 1991 Türkiye-UK treaty (ARB/26/40).

ICSID's case dataset listed 299 pending cases on 17 October and 45 cases registered in 2026. Peru was the respondent in 20 pending cases, Mexico and Colombia in 19 each and Honduras in 11, the most of any states. The count is ours, from the dataset; the next edition covers the rest of October.