Permanent Court Of Arbitration Grants Largest Arbitral Award In History

On July 28, 2014, a tribunal sitting at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague awarded the largest arbitral award in history. In this landmark decision, the tribunal, which was chaired by Yves Fortier, Canada's former representative on the UN Security Council, ordered the Russian Federation to pay over US$50 billion in damages to three former shareholders of Yukos Oil Company (Yukos) for breaching its international obligations under the Energy Charter Treaty. The tribunal ruled that the Russian Federation effectively expropriated Yukos' assets, and by extension the claimants' investments in Yukos, without fairly compensating them, in violation of Article 13(1) of the Energy Charter Treaty.