Investment Disputes

There is no reliable information available about the year 2000 case initiated by Indian lawyer
Ashok Sancheti.

In 2009 Swedish energy company Vattenfall brought the government of Germany to arbitration
at the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) under the Energy
Charter Treaty. The claim was related to the delay in obtaining, restrictions on and monitoring
of a permit for using water from the river Elbe for cooling a coal power-plant in Hamburg-
Moorburg. The case ARB/09/6 was settled on the condition of implementing a settlement of the
Hamburg Higher Administrative Court stipulating a modified water permit and the construction
of a hybrid discharge cooler. Environmental groups opposed the construction of the coal power
plant from the beginning and have used different means (petitions, protest, press, lawsuits) to
prevent the coal power plant from being connected to the grid. These groups submitted a
comment to ICSID, contesting that the restrictions were an indirect expropriation. After the
award, the environmental groups argued that the ICSID procedure lead to the water authority
reducing the environmental standard of the water permit.

In 2012, Vattenfall filed a request for ICSID arbitration, after the government of Germany
decided to phase out nuclear energy. The case is pending and has generated immense public
interest in the negotiations of the investment chapter in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership. Some non-governmental organizations argue that German energy providers, who
are affected by the nuclear phase out, are discriminated against because they are limited to
national courts.