With its established tradition in transnational dispute resolution, the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (SCC) aims to play a significant role in international investment arbitration. To this end, the SCC has been successful in offering itself as an alternative venue alongside ICSID in Washington and other dispute resolution centres. Indeed, the SCC is named in the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) as one of three alternatives for settling investment disputes. In fact, Stockholm saw the first ECT dispute to be resolved (Nykomb v. Latvia1 2003). Others were to follow; Petrobart v. The Kyrgyz Republic2 2005 and Amato v. Ukraine3 2008, with other ECT claims currently pending.

Bilateral investment treaties (BITs) have come into existence with a pace that could only have been dreamt of 20 years earlier. As a consequence, investment treaty arbitration has become a matter of vital international concern since it permits foreign investors to sue host governments for damages allegedly caused to their investment. With huge sums of money at stake on one side, and national sovereignty on the other, investment treaty arbitration has become an important aspect of the international political economy.

The aim of this article is to provide a modest overview of the relatively recent principle/standard of legitimate expectation (LE) in investment protection disputes, as well as to elaborate upon the kinds of expectations that are legally relevant in this evolving area.