Moussas & Partners initiated a BIT claim under the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules on behalf of Mytilineos Holdings back in 2005 against the Republic of Serbia (then Serbia and Montenegro) and then a second claim in 2013. The dispute related to a frustrated investment in state-owned RTB BOR, one of the largest metallurgical and mining complexes for copper extraction and production on a global basis. Following an award on jurisdiction issued in 2006, a second on the merits issued in 2009 and a third on the merits issued in 2017, the Tribunal awarded Mytilineos the amount of approx. USD 40 mio in damages. Our firm, joined by international firms in the course of the various phases of the case (Freshfields, Three Crowns, BDK Advokati), led our client to the successful outcome with persistence and commitment. The Tribunal eventually found that on the basis of the Greece-Serbia (former Yugoslavia) BIT, Serbia (a) indirectly expropriated without compensation Mytilineos’s investment (b) frustrated Mytilineos’s legitimate and reasonable expectations as an investor to be afforded fair and equitable treatment by the Serbian State.

The international arbitral tribunal comprised of Messrs. Klaus Sachs, a German national, as Chairman, US national Doak Bishop and Serbian academic Mirko Vasiljević as arbitrators.

Mytilineos Holdings’ press release of 29 August 2017 is available here.

The case has been headlined in the Global Arbitration Review (please find the full article here) and in Investment Arbitration Reporter [available here (requires subscription) ].

Case update: Serbia has honoured the award by paying the full amount within 2018 following an agreement with the Serbian government which we helped negotiate (for further information please click here)