The Attorney General of Ecuador found that an agreement in the form of a Letter of Intent by which the holder of an oil concession agreed to assign its contractual rights to a third party was not in breach of the Hydrocarbon Law (HL) despite the fact that the preliminary agreement was not approved by the Minister of Energy and Mines (MEM

In an action filed by Andina Licores S.A. (“Andina”), an Ecuadorian corporation, against E & J. Gallo Winery (“Gallo”), one of the largest wineries from California, the Second Civil Court of Guayaquil found that it lacked jurisdiction to hear the dispute because both parties had agreed in their distribution contract that their controversies must be heard by a California court and in accordance to California law.

In an attempt to ensure transparency and create a climate of legal certainty and security, the Ecuadorian Congress passed the Law on Transparency and Access to Public Information on May 18 2004. The new law strengthens principles of transparency and information which, although added to the Constitution in 1998, have largely not been implemented in practice, even in cases before Ecuador's Constitutional Court.

On June 17, 2004, the Empresa Estatal Petroleos del Ecuador (PETROECUADOR), a corporation fully owned by the Government of Ecuador, filed with the ICSID Secretariat a request to annul the February 20, 2004 arbitral award (ARB/01/10) rendered in an arbitral proceeding where PETROECUADOR and REPSOL, YPF Ecuador S. A. (REPSOL) had been parties to.