By letter of 24 December 2002, Plama Consortium Limited (“Plama” or “the Claimant”), a Cypriot company, filed a request for arbitration with the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (“ICSID” or “the Centre”) against the Republic of Bulgaria (“Bulgaria” or “the Respondent”). The request invoked the ICSID arbitration provisions of the Energy Charter Treaty (“ECT”) and the most favored nation (“MFN”) provision of a bilateral investment treaty (“BIT”) entered into in 1987 between the Government of the Republic of Cyprus and the Government of the People's Republic of Bulgaria, the Agreement on Mutual Encouragement and Protection of Investments (“the BIT”), which would import into the BIT the ICSID arbitration provisions of other BITs entered into by Bulgaria.