15 July 2015 | CIL Seminar Series

The Treatment of Regulatory Change in Bilateral Investment Treaty Disputes: When Can Host States Change Their Minds?

Introduction

States often change their policies and frequently in ways that are disadvantageous to businesses. When, if ever, can a change in policy give rise to a breach of a bilateral investment treaty? Can regulatory change give rise to breach even if the new policy is rational, non-discriminatory and consistent with prior promises made by the host state?

This seminar examined how tribunals established under bilateral investment treaties have tackled matters of regulatory change. It looked at examples drawn from the region (such as India’s changes to telecom spectrum allocation policies and Indonesia’s changes to policies on raw material exports) and beyond (such as Canada’s changes to intellectual property rules and Switzerland’s changes to foreign exchange policies) and provided a descriptive and normative account of when a regulatory change can amount to a breach of treaty.

About the Speaker

Mr Thomas Sebastian is a barrister at Monckton Chambers in London and specialises in public international law. He has acted in over 20 treaty cases and has an in-depth understanding of the commercial, regulatory and political factors that give rise to trade and investment disputes. He also acts in commercial arbitrations. Thomas holds a BA, LLB (Hons) degree from the National Law School of India University as well as BCL and MPhil degrees from Oxford University, which he attended on a Rhodes Scholarship.