Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Let me introduce my

speakers. Martina Polasek is one of the cornerstones of ICSID.

There is nothing in the world of investment treaty arbitration that

she does not know. She is also a Czech/Swede living in

Washington, and represents, I think, the very best of Europe and

the U.S. Martina will also cautiously talk, if she has time to do so,

about institutions in this field of execution, but I would want to

caution that everybody on this panel only expresses personal

views, which are not necessarily the views of institutions or law

firms they work for or clients they act for and, therefore, should

not be held against any of those. Karel Daele is one of the few

people who actually has a lot of experience in arbitration in

Africa. He spent some time in Tanzania and now lives in London.

He has unique insight into the north/south perspective. He is a

law firm partner. Dolores Bentolila is an associate in Geneva and

she is an Argentine national so we have the east/west perspective

between Geneva and Argentina. While I am merely European, my

speakers cover a large part of the globe with the exception of Asia

and Australia, which is impressive from just three people. Let us

get started.

 

 

DOLORES BENTOLILA: Good afternoon. I will discuss the

alternative means of enforcing arbitral awards. As Karel will

explain later, enforcement of investment arbitral awards is not an

easy task because it is very difficult to find attachable assets. In

response, investors have developed very creative ways of

enforcing arbitral awards against States. These alternative means

of collecting arbitral awards include means adopted by the

investor, means adopted by States, and means adopted by arbitral

institutions or the World Bank. Alternative means of enforcing

arbitral awards by the investor include post-award settlements,
reputational damage, and selling the award to distress debt funds.