Since 2008, French courts have ruled on a dozen applications to set aside arbitral awards based on investment treaties. In such cases, arbitrators do not derive their powers from an arbitration clause inserted in a contract but from the provisions of an international treaty under which States have undertaken to submit to arbitration any disputes that may arise in respect of investments made in their territory by investors of another State party. This article proposes an initial assessment of the control exercised by French courts over investment treaty awards, when the seat of the arbitration is located in France. Although these first decisions confirm that the five annulment grounds listed in Article 1520 of the French Code of Civil Procedure are also applicable to investment arbitration, this undifferentiated regime is not without consequences. In particular, while the annulment grounds relating to the constitution of the tribunal or the parties’ right to be heard appear to raise few issues specific to investment arbitration, the full control of the arbitral tribunal’s jurisdiction potentially has far-reaching implications in this field, where many jurisdictional issues fall far short of consensus. The Paris Court of Appeal has thus started to take position on several fundamental issues concerning the determination of the personal and material jurisdiction of investment treaty tribunals, developing its own contribution to international investment law.
Revue de l’arbitrage