Con il lodo Green Power K/S and SCE Solar Don Benito APS v Kingdom of Spain (Green Power) del 16 giugno 2022 (v. il post di Lampo pubblicato in questo blog e Shipley), per la prima volta, un tribunale arbitrale, chiamato a dirimere una controversia sorta tra un investitore di uno Stato membro UE ed un altro Stato membro, ha dichiarato di non avere giurisdizione a conoscere della controversia, accogliendo la posizione espressa dalla Corte di giustizia nella sua giurisprudenza a partire dalla ben nota sentenza Achmea. Significativamente, ciò è avvenuto nel contesto del Trattato sulla Carta dell’Energia (TCE), accordo multilaterale di cui sono parti sia l’UE che 26 Stati membri (tutti eccetto… l’Italia!).

There can be little doubt that the long-awaited judgment of the Court of Justice in the Achmea case delivered on 6 March (Case C-284/16, Slovak Republik v. Achmea BV) gives the last word on the (even longer) debated issue relating to the (in)compatibility of intra-EU investment bilateral investment treaties (BITs) with the EU legal order. In particular, in sharp contrast with the Opinion of AG Wathelet, the Court does not hesitate to state that an arbitration tribunal established under a BIT between two Member States «call[s] into question not only the principle of mutual trust between Member States but also the preservation of the particular nature of the law established by the Treaties, ensured by the preliminary ruling procedure provided for in article 267 TFEU, and is not therefore compatible with the principle of sincere cooperation» (para. 58). The judgment is certainly to be welcome, it will have important consequences on the future of the intra-EU investment agenda, and may have some impact also on the extra-EU investment agenda (see infra, § 5). It finally clarifies a series of important legal questions which had often been raised in the last decade before investment arbitration tribunals seized under relevant intra-EU BITs or under the Energy Charter Treaty, that probably lacked an adequate EU law perspective.

Mauro Gatti, Università del Lussemburgo La Corte di giustizia dell’UE ha emesso il 16 maggio 2017 l’atteso Parere 2/15, riguardante l’Accordo di libero scambio tra l’UE e la Repubblica di Singapore. La domanda di parere, proposta dalla Commissione europea sulla base dell’art. 218(11) TFUE, mirava a chiarire se l’Accordo rientrasse

Filippo Fontanelli, University of Edinburgh «That’s right: a company was able to sue a country over a public health measure, through an international court [sic]. How the **** is that possible? (laughs from the audience)»(from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, 14 February 2015. See the video here, the bit