Originally from Investment Treaty Arbitration and International Law - Volume 10

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PANEL 2

MR. LAIRD:  Welcome everyone to Day 2 of the Tenth Annual Investment Treaty Arbitration Conference, which we’ve lovingly titled “A Celebration of Ten Years of Leading Edge Research, Debate and Discussion.”

So, we had an excellent start yesterday.  It was a great cocktail reception, and now we’re moving on to Session 2, titled “Ten Years of Abusive Round Pegs in Square Holes or a System Already Moving in the Right Direction.”  And we’re very privileged to have, once again, an eminent Panel, and Moderator Michael Nolan will direct traffic and take us through this excellent topic and discussion.

Michael Nolan is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy and a member of the firm’s litigation and arbitration group.  Michael has represented clients in U.S. federal and state courts and of course before commercial and investor State arbitral tribunals involving many different topic areas, including commercial disputes, securities, antitrust, tax, and insolvency cases.

His particular focus, though, is, of course, on international arbitration and transnational litigation.  He’s served as a counsel as well as arbitrator before all the major Rules, including the ICSID and UNCITRAL Rules, and he’s invested both investors and States in bilateral investment treaty and Energy Charter Treaty arbitration.  So, Michael has a great and deep understanding of this field, as well as being a loyal and repeat participant in this conference.  I think Michael has been to almost all of our conferences over the last 10 years, and we’d like to thank him, and, of course, his firm for being very loyal sponsors of the conference.

I would also like to thank our other sponsors who have also been very loyal supporters of this conference:  Baker & McKenzie; Cornerstone Research; Crowell & Moring; Curtis, Mallet Prevost, Colt & Mosle; Milbank Tweed, of course; and Skadden Arps, who have been a long time participant, and, of course, sponsored the faculty dinner last night.

We have a number of supporters as well, including Arbit; ASA below 40; the German Institution of Arbitration, DIS; and Transnational Dispute Management has been a media supporter. 

So, welcome everyone, and I will turn it over to Michael to take us through on Panel Number 2.