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 Coรถperatief UA and Ampere Equity Fund BV obtained โฌ26.5m 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 ๐๐๐๐ฐ๐ต ๐๐ผ๐ฑ๐ฒ ๐ผ๐ณ ๐๐ถ๐๐ถ๐น ๐ฃ๐ฟ๐ผ๐ฐ๐ฒ๐ฑ๐๐ฟ๐ฒ (DCPR) and the ๐ญ๐ต๐ฑ๐ด ๐ก๐ฒ๐ ๐ฌ๐ผ๐ฟ๐ธ ๐๐ผ๐ป๐๐ฒ๐ป๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป ๐ผ๐ป ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐ฅ๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ผ๐ด๐ป๐ถ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ ๐๐ป๐ณ๐ผ๐ฟ๐ฐ๐ฒ๐บ๐ฒ๐ป๐ ๐ผ๐ณ ๐๐ผ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ถ๐ด๐ป ๐๐ฟ๐ฏ๐ถ๐๐ฟ๐ฎ๐น ๐๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฑ๐.
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.
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