Euro128 million award is annulled, as ICSID Ad-hoc committee finds fault with arbitrator’s undisclosed relationship to claimants’ damages experts.
In a decision rendered today (June 11, 2020), Ricardo Ramirez Hernandez (chair), Makhdoom Ali Khan and Dominique Hascher unanimously decided to annul Eiser and Energia Solar Luxembourg v. Spain award because of the existence of a relationship between one of the claimants’ damages experts, Carlos Lapuerta, and Mr. Alexandrov, which “creates a manifest appearance of bias”.
The committee took “particular note of four instances where Dr. Alexandrov and Mr. Lapuerta worked for the same party, as counsel and expert respectively”, including two cases which had been proceeding in parallel to the Eiser arbitration. The committee added that this relationship should have been disclosed, and that Dr. Alexandrov’s absence of disclosure, deprived Spain of the opportunity to challenge him in the arbitration proceedings.