Originally from Investment Treaty Arbitration and International Law Volume 7

DR. SABAHI: Thank you, everyone. This is the last panel of the day, and the topic is “Measure by Measure? Calculating Damages in Energy Disputes.” This is obviously a very important and interesting topic, particularly in light of recent decisions like the Occidental versus Ecuador Award, which was a large one, $1.7 billion award. 

The issue that this panel will address, though, is whether there is any difference between damages calculated pursuant to the terms of energy contracts containing index clauses that tie contractual benefits to for example an oil price index, and, fair market value of the project operated based on the same contract under international law principles of compensation.

Our moderator is Tim Nelson. He’s been for many years here moderating these panels, and we are grateful to have him here. He’s aJo partner at the law firm Skadden Arps in the New York office. He has tremendous amount of experience in international arbitration and cross-border dispute resolution. One of his most recent and relevant cases for this panel is the Kardassopoulos versus Georgia, which we are all familiar with.

Thank you, and I pass it to you.

MR. NELSON: Thank you, Borzu, and thank you to the conference organizers.

It’s once again a privilege to be here and especially when we have the benefit of such scholarship from the authors I’m about to introduce. Let me just briefly introduce our panel first, although many members of the panel need no introduction.

Each of our financial panelists has experience in testifying on damages issues.