On October 1, 2014, the Canada-China Foreign Investment
Promotion and Protection Agreement1
("CC-FIPA" or
"Agreement") came into force. The goal
of this FIPA is to provide clear rules for investors and
protections against discriminatory or arbitrary treatment. Like
other FIPAs, this Agreement provides investors with recourse to
investor-state arbitration where the investors are of the view that
the CC-FIPA has been breached and they have sustained damage or
loss as a result. This summary focuses primarily on the
CC-FIPA's investor state-dispute settlement mechanism.
We note at the outset that the CC-FIPA does not alter
Canada's and China's (the
"Parties") rules with respect to the
establishment of investments. This differs from some other Canadian
investment protection regimes, such as chapter 11 of the North
American Free Trade Agreement. As a result, Canada has
preserved its right to block certain new investments by China
pursuant to the Investment Canada Act.
