Amsterdam District Court declines to hear the anti-suit injunction petition by Spain to prevent renewable investors from enforcing arbitral awards in the US.
On 28 February 2020, Dutch investment companies AES Solar Energy Coöperatief UA and Ampere Equity Fund BV obtained €26.5m arbitral award against the Kingdom of Spain before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in Switzerland, currently pending enforcement before the District Court of Columbia in the US.
In its strategy to avoid the enforcement, Spain requested a (sort-of) anti-suit injunction relief before the Dutch courts. To neutralise Spain’s efforts, AES and AEF opposed the petition and assigned all their rights under the award to a US entity Blasket Renewable Investments LLC, to evade the jurisdictional reach of the Dutch courts.
The Amsterdam District Court Judge, Mr. Justice HC Hoogeveen, in his judgment of March 2023, considered the scope of its jurisdiction to decide on the relief sought by Spain under the 𝗗𝘂𝘁𝗰𝗵 𝗖𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗖𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗹 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗿𝗲 (DCPR) and the 𝟭𝟵𝟱𝟴 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗬𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗴𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗘𝗻𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗰𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗲𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝗔𝗿𝗯𝗶𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗔𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱𝘀.
Interestingly, under the DCPR, the Dutch Court considered that it does not have jurisdiction to hear the case as the potential damage arising from the award enforcement would not occur in the Netherlands but in the US, blaming Spain for having ‘wrongly created an additional forum’.
This and much more are in my new analysis recently published by LexisNexis UK (subscription is required).
Thanks again to Gustavo Moser, Rebecca Lamb, Ella Woodcock and the team at LexisNexis UK for their terrific work.
#arbitration #enforcement #renewables
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