Download This PaperKingdom of Lesotho v. Swissbourgh Diamond Mine (Pty.) Limited: A De-Novo Approach Towards Domestic Jurisdiction in Investor-State Disputes
ArbitrPraxi- Arbitration Process and Law, Centre for Advanced Research in Dispute Settlement (CARDS) DSNLU Arbitration Weekends Conference
16 Pages Posted: 29 Apr 2020
Date Written: September 1, 2017
Abstract
On 14th August 2017, Justice Kannan Ramesh delivered a judgment in the case of Kingdom of Lesotho v. Swissbourgh Diamond Mine (Pty) Limited and Others. This was the first case in Singapore where an investor-State arbitral award was set aside on merits by the High Court of Singapore. Swissbourgh had brought a claim against the Kingdom of Lesotho before the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) for unlawfully expropriating the investments in the form of mine leases in the Kingdom. The PCA Tribunal ruled in favour of Swissbourgh, which led the Kingdom to file an Originating Summons in the Court in Singapore. The case raises several intriguing questions of arbitral and international investment law; the first being the Singapore High Court’s jurisdiction to set aside a purely International dispute with two international parties through domestic laws, second being the analysis on the merits of the dispute inter alia aspects of expropriation and investment and the third being the interpretation of the treaties as a whole. It is a general rule that investments shall not be nationalised or expropriated in the territory of any state party except for a public purpose, under due process of law and subject to payment of compensation. The judgment also analyzes the holistic ambit of Investment Protection and generally what constitutes an investment. The paper will analyze the judgment of the Singapore Court and critique on the major component of the jurisdiction of the Court to set aside the award on its merit. It also elucidates the procedure of the Model Laws and the International Arbitration Act of Singapore which according to the author, bar the Singapore Court to take cognizance of the PCA Tribunal’s award.
Keywords: Permanent Court of Arbitration, SADC, Swissbourgh, Kingdom of Lesotho
JEL Classification: K10, K12, K39
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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