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74<br />
EDF, has issued a similar complaint against the Republic of Argentina 193 and also<br />
the German company Siemens is demanding compensation payments: The news<br />
agency NfA, Nachrichten für Aussenhandel, reported that:<br />
“Siemens wants 500 million US-dollars from Argentina<br />
Berlin (vwd) – The Siemens AG, Munich, has demanded 500 million US-dollars<br />
in compensation payments from Argentina for the cancellation of a contract.<br />
As emanated from a note directed to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission<br />
(SEC) on Monday, the company has filed for an arbitration proceeding<br />
at the International Center of Investment Disputes of the World Bank. Siemens<br />
argues that, through the cancellation, Argentina has infringed an investment<br />
treaty with Germany.” 194<br />
Complaints of private companies against states at the ICSID on the basis of<br />
bilateral investment treaties have risen from five in 2000, to twelve in 2001, to fifteen<br />
in 2002. 195 What is explosive about these allegations, which are based on BITs, is<br />
first of all that such allegations can only be undertaken by foreign private investors<br />
and that domestic investors are not allowed to take such legal actions, and second<br />
of all that there is a procedural detail that every complaint filed on the basis of BITs<br />
is held before an international arbitration courts, with special emphasis on business<br />
and investors’ rights and not on social or environmental aspects. Luke Eric Peterson<br />
of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) comments, regarding<br />
the wave of individual complaints against the Argentinian government:<br />
“A troubling feature of this growing spate of cases against the Argentine<br />
Republic, is that foreign investors are mounting a series of individual ad-hoc<br />
arbitrations which may challenge essentially the same government measures.<br />
Because these arbitrations are proceeding in parallel, and Tribunals are not<br />
strictly bound by the determinations of other (or earlier) Tribunals, the stage is<br />
set for a series of potentially divergent or even conflicting rulings.” 196<br />
It is not surprising that, given these experiences of the Republic of Argentina,<br />
the population of the neighboring country of Uruguay is already sensitized to the<br />
193 Les Echos, September 12, 2002: EDF lance une procédure contre le gouvernement argentin.<br />
194 Own translation of the following original text: “Siemens will 500 Mio USD von Argentinien.<br />
Berlin (vwd) - Die Siemens AG, München, fordert von Argentinien 500 Mio USD Schadenersatz für die Stornierung<br />
eines Auftrags. Wie aus einer Mitteilung an die US-Börsenaufsicht SEC vom Montag hervorgeht, hat das<br />
Unternehmen beim Internationalen Zentrum zur Beilegung von Investitionsstreitigkeiten (ICSID) der Weltbank ein<br />
Schiedsgerichtsverfahren beantragt. Mit der Stornierung habe Argentinien gegen ein Investitionsabkommen mit<br />
Deutschland verstoßen, argumentiert Siemens.” Taken from: NfA, December 9, 2003, http://www.MERCOSURinfo.com/al/index.shtml.<br />
195 Peterson, Luke Eric (International Institute for Sustainable Development – IISD): Research Note: Emerging Bilateral<br />
Investment Treaty Arbitration and Sustainable Development, August 2003, p. 3.<br />
196 Ibid., p. 5.