Do Municipal Investment Laws Always Constitute a Unilateral Offer to Arbitrate? - Panel Discussion - Chapter 7 - Investment Treaty Arbitration and International Law - Volume 2
Ignacio Suarez Anzorena is a Latin America Specialist Adviser in the Washington, D.C. office of Clifford Chance. He has been involved in ad hoc and institutional arbitration proceedings conducted under the auspices of most of the leading arbitration organizations.
Victorino J. Tejera Pérez is an Attorney in the Caracas office of Macleod Dixon LLP. He concentrates his practice in commercial law, conflict law and corporate matters. He focuses his practice in national and international litigation and arbitration and in Alternative Dispute Resolution in general.
Marco E. Schnabl is a Partner in the international arbitration and litigation groups of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, New York City. He has appeared for claimants and respondents in proceedings before the leading international arbitral institutions including several involving investment treaty arbitrations.
Michael D. Nolan is a Partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley and McCloy LLP. Mr. Nolan is experienced in all phases of commercial litigation and arbitration.
Margrete Stevens is a Consultant in King & Spalding’s Washington, D.C. office working in the International Investment Arbitration Practice Group. Ms. Stevens served as Acting Lead Counsel, supervising the ICSID Secretariat’s administration of more than 100 investor-State arbitration proceedings including cases brought under bilateral investment treaties; NAFTA; and the Energy Charter Treaty.
Mark Kantor is an independent arbitrator. He teaches both international arbitration and international business transactions as an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University Law Center. He is also a Fellow at the Columbia Program on International Investment.
Perry S. Bechky is a Professor of Law at University of Connecticut School of Law, Hartford, CT.
Originally from Investment Treaty Arbitration and International Law - Volume 2
MR. IAN LAIRD: As our panelists settle themselves, I want to welcome everyone to our second session today. It is entitled: Do Municipal Investment Laws Always Constitute a Unilateral Offer to Arbitrate? And we have a very eminent moderator here today. Marco Schnabl is a partner in the International Arbitration and Litigation Groups of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom based in the New York City office. And he has been very active in international arbitration and has been involved in a number of investments arbitrations. So I am going to turn it over to Marco’s very able hands. Thank you very much.
MR. SCHNABL: Thank you. A while ago, folks at Juris thought that I would make for an apt moderator. And that is their fault because, knowing me, they know that “moderation” is not really what I do best. It is not good for the entertainment value, and it is not good for the educational value either. When we assembled many months ago, we inherited a title to this presentation: Do Municipal Investment Laws Always Constitute a Unilateral Offer to Arbitrate? And that is, perhaps, an infelicitous choice. The word “always” is a dead giveaway. With all this legal talent, how could anything “always” be true? That could never be the case. In any event, it’s not exactly what we want to talk about. A better way to describe the subject before you is the question: What precisely is consent for purposes of investment arbitration? What are the sources of “consent?” What happened to municipal laws as a source of consent? Why are they no longer the focus when looking to establish the source of "consent?"