"I realise that some of my criticisms may be mistaken; but to refuse to criticize judgements for fear of being mistaken is to abandon criticism altogether... If any of my criticisms are found to be correct, the cause is served; and if any are found to be incorrect the very process of finding out my mistakes must lead to the discovery of the right reasons, or better reasons than I have been able to give, and the cause is served just as well."

-Mr. HM Seervai, Preface to the 1st ed., Constitutional Law of India.

Wednesday, February 21, 2018

Further Updates on the Nissan- Government of India Treaty Arbitration

Readers would recollect that we had done a post on the invocation of investor treaty arbitration by Nissan against the Government of India for the default committed by the State of Tamil Nadu. In the presentation uploaded in the post, we had noted that the State of Tamil Nadu had filed a petition in the Madras High Court seeking an anti-arbitration injunction against Nissan from proceeding with the arbitration. Nissan had filed a counter in the Madras High Court stating, among other things, that the Government had filed the suit belatedly after 10 months from the invocation of arbitration (February 2017)

Nissan had also moved an anti-suit injunction seeking to restrain the Government from proceeding further in the suit. 

Newspapers report that Nissan is now mulling withdrawal of the application for anti-suit injunction. It appears that the application it filed with the tribunal, whose seat is at Singapore, could not be taken up by the tribunal owing to the Chinese New Year. These submissions were made in the Madras High Court in the recent hearing held in the matter. The Judge has posted the matter on 27 February to enable Nissan's counsel to obtain instructions from his client on the anti-suit injunction it sought from the tribunal. 

The newsreport from the Hindu can be accessed from here.

It also appears that against the arbitration notice, the Government had raised jurisdictional issues and had appointed Justice JS Khehar (former Chief Justice of India) as its nominee arbitrator. It also appears that Nissan had no objections to the tribunal bifurcating the arbitration by deciding the jurisdictional issues first. (See this newsreport)

We'll keep the readers posted on further proceedings in the matter.

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