GAMI INVESTMENTS, INC. - NAFTAClaims

seems to me to be quite correct. I will put it in stronger terms. The
Tribunal must assume that Mexico would comply. In any case, you have
stated that the government would comply, which is a statement that
certainly confirms it to the Tribunal.
I would like to understand what happens to this case if the
judicial process that is underway and that concludes within six to eight
months, as you said, reinstates GAM, undoes the effect of the
expropriation decree, what then is the case before this Tribunal? I
would appreciate it if I could here Mr. Perezcano's explanation of this
if I correctly understood the objections of jurisdiction, and also if I
could hear GAMI's.
PRESIDENT PAULSSON: If you wish to deal with the question in
the afternoon, that is fine as well. We were throwing questions at you.
I know what it feels like.
MR. PEREZCANO [Interpreted from Spanish]: Mr. President, I
will be very happy to respond to the question, but I have some other
concerns. And so I would like to ask for a brief recess. Now if the
Tribunal prefers for us to come back in the afternoon, we would now like
to take a quick break.
PRESIDENT PAULSSON: Why don't you note that question? I am
seeking to understand how the notion of exhaustion of remedies who really
does come into the question and, since you alluded to it, I am trying to
think my way through it.
Let's take the case of something which is alleged to be
tantamount to expropriation rather than expropriation. And we have an
agent of the executive branch of a government, say, a sheriff in
Mississippi, and let's assume that his acts are imputable to the central
government, just assume that. But I purposefully took the instance of a
relatively lower level agent of the executive branch of the government
who does something quite eccentric and impounds the assets of an
investor. It does explain what he is doing, and I said it is eccentric.
So he could not point to any law that enables him to do it, and he
certainly isn't issuing a decree explaining what he is doing. But the
investor says this is tantamount to an expropriation. I cannot use my
assets.
Now since we are contemplating something alleged to be
tantamount to an expropriation, you might accept that it would be
difficult for the investor to sue the central government on the basis
that there has been an expropriation by saying that under the relevant
treaty I don't have to exhaust local remedies.
If it seems rather easy to go to a higher local authority,
like this sheriff's supervisor, and just tell him to undo this eccentric
thing that he did, and then perhaps we are not talking about exhaustion
of local remedies so far as satisfying ourselves that it really was an
action tantamount to an expropriation if it was relatively easy to undo
it. So put that on one side.
I wonder if one could really give so much weight to the
notion that you don't have to exhaust local remedies, that even the
actions of this sheriff could be examinable on the merits by an
International Tribunal.
Now we move to a case of what is clearly by hypothesis an
expropriation decreed by a relevant government with a text, a decree
which has the word "expropriation". We hereby expropriate, absolutely no
doubt about it.
The owner of the expropriated asset I suppose--I am sorry for
the long question, and you will just tell me what parts you disagree with
or agree with or want to explain to me--the owner of the expropriated