Reports of Overseas Private Investment Corporation Determinations

Edited by Mark Kantor, Michael D. Nolan, and Karl P. Sauvant

The only publication to include the complete collection of OPIC determinations
Illustrates the transactional solutions used to reduce political risk and resolve investment disputes, making it an important reference point for practitioners and academics
Headnotes collate key information such as the date, petitioner, host country, contract or guarantee number, OPIC contract type, the nature of the claim, the amount of the claim, and the relief allowed
Headnotes also include a factual background and a brief exposition of the petitioner's position and the reasoning of the memorandum of determination on any dispositive issue
Includes an exhaustive analytical index to aid navigation of the content.

Reports of Overseas Private Investment Corporation Determinations

Edited by Mark Kantor, Michael D. Nolan, and Karl P. Sauvant

Description

This comprehensive two-volume work is a collection of determinations from OPIC, the US governmental political risk insurance provider, in the form of its Memoranda of Determinations from 1966 through to 2010.

An important part of international investment law and policy is the political risk insurance coverage provided to international investors by their home states and multilateral organizations such as the World Bank. These programs are of crucial importance to the growth of international investment flows and the development of international investment law. The insurance claim decisions and as a result this area of international law has received disproportionately little attention. This reference work is the first to make the underlying primary material available to the investment law, political risk and academic communities. The authors have made the claims determinations more accessible with the inclusion of headnote summaries for all determinations.

The determinations reflect the decisions of OPIC under US and international law and therefore have a significant impact on its future claims determinations. They reveal what types of claims have been honored for expropriation, political violence or convertibility/transferability restrictions. Users of political risk insurance worldwide will find this collection invaluable in understanding what events are and are not in fact covered, and deciding whether to obtain insurance coverage. These OPIC determinations will also contribute to the development of arbitral jurisprudence regarding government actions that are alleged to be in violation of investment protections found in investment treaties and investment law. They are additionally of interest in the context of the presentation and determination of future OPIC claims and decision making by other political risk insurance providers.

Reports of Overseas Private Investment Corporation Determinations

Edited by Mark Kantor, Michael D. Nolan, and Karl P. Sauvant

Reports of Overseas Private Investment Corporation Determinations

Edited by Mark Kantor, Michael D. Nolan, and Karl P. Sauvant

Author Information

Mark Kantor currently serves as an arbitrator, as well as teaching as an Adjunct Professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. He is also Senior Research Fellow at the Vale Columbia Center for Sustainable International Investment and Editor in Chief of Transnational Dispute Management, the online journal. Mr. Kantor is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Arbitration Association and Vice-Chair of the D.C. Bar International Dispute Resolution Committee.

Michael D. Nolan is a Partner at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP and Adjunct Professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. He has represented clients or served as arbitrator in arbitrations under AAA, ICC, ICSID, UNCITRAL and other rules and is consistently listed in Euromoney Guide, Experts in Commercial Arbitration and Chambers USA for international arbitration. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Arbitration Association and of the Panel of ICSID Arbitrators (by appointment of Mongolia). Mr. Nolan is a graduate of Harvard College and of the University of Chicago Law School.

Karl P. Sauvant is Resident Senior Fellow and Founding Executive Director of the Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment, Senior Research Scholar and Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School, and Guest Professor at Nankai University, China. Before that, he was Director of UNCTAD's Investment Division. He is the author of The Effect of Treaties on Foreign Direct Investment (Oxford University Press, 2009 with Lisa Sachs) and the author of, or responsible for, a substantial number of publications. In 2006, he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the European International Business Academy. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1975.

Contributors:

Frédéric Sourgens, Associate, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP in Washington, D.C.

Lisa E. Sachs, Director of the Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment.

Sean Newell, Attorney-Advisor with the United States Department of Justice

Reports of Overseas Private Investment Corporation Determinations

Edited by Mark Kantor, Michael D. Nolan, and Karl P. Sauvant

Reviews and Awards

"OPIC's formal determinations are an important part of the jurisprudence of international investment law but until now they have been largely inaccessible. This series, with its clear organization and lucid commentaries, will be an indispensable tool for scholars and practitioners." --Professor W. Michael Reisman, Yale Law School

"Editors are to be complemented for their contribution to a better understanding of the most essential dynamic of investment insurance coverage-the determination of claims by the insurer, at one of the most important investment insurers in the global industry." --Barry Metzger, Partner, Baker & McKenzie

"Kantor, Nolan and Sauvant have done us a service in pulling this information together in a coherent manner while leaving judgements to the reader or scholar. This compendium, coming at a time when there is greater use of and frustration with arbitration as a solution to investment disputes should help enrich the dialog about the relevant issues of international law." --Julie Martin, Marsh

"OPIC has the institutional experience of resources to engage with the relevant legal principles at a level of sophistication which is occasionally superior to that of some states. When presented by three co-editors of this eminence, these volumes are a publishing event of importance." --Jan Paulsson, Freshfields Buckhaus Deringer

"This timely book is a comprehensive synthesis and review of OPIC political risk insurance claim decisions, which are a treasure trove of thoughtful analysis on inconvertibility, political violence, and expropriation issues. This is invaluable reference for the scholar and practitioner alike in understanding political risks and the tools available for international investors to deal with those risks." --Frederick E. Jenney, Partner, Project Finance & Development Group, Morrison & Foerster LLP, Washington D.C.

"Offers valuable insight to political risk insurance options." --Panayotis M. Protopsaltis, Dryllerakis & Associates, Transnational Dispute Management

Reports of Overseas Private Investment Corporation Determinations

Edited by Mark Kantor, Michael D. Nolan, and Karl P. Sauvant

From Our Blog

Political violence and PRI

The conversation in the new and old media over the last several weeks has been dominated by reports about uprisings in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt and violent clashes in Bahrain, Yemen, the Ivory Coast, Iraq and elsewhere. In Libya, fighting currently is reported to take place close to strategic oil installations. Because of the scarcity of claims arising out of similar events in investor-state arbitration, political risk insurance claims determinations by the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) can play an important role to develop this area of law and fill these gaps in future investor-state arbitral arbitrations.

Posted on March 31, 2011

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