Recent ECT Claims - Impact For Energy Investors And Governments

The last few weeks have seen a raft of new investor-state arbitrations under the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), including the first known investor-state claim against the European Union (EU) itself. These claims largely arise from policy decisions by governments of signatory states as they seek to move away from fossil fuels and toward renewable sources of energy. Globally, such policy decisions are likely to continue and to go further in the years ahead, which, in turn, may result in more such claims both under the ECT and under other treaties. It is to be expected that many governments worldwide will take account of this in formulating policy and that investors in both traditional energy and renewable assets will have an eye to the protections that treaties may offer.