Summary
Corruption is a global concern and constitutes a criminal offence in most jurisdictions. Parties sometimes raise corruption allegations in the course of investment arbitration proceedings to defeat or support a claim. This may involve situations where domestic criminal proceedings are conducted in parallel with the arbitral proceedings, which can have an impact on the arbitration. This article seeks to understand the interplay between investment arbitration proceedings and potential, ongoing or past criminal proceedings in the context of corruption allegations, and to identify trends in the ways in which arbitral tribunals deal with the different stages of domestic criminal proceedings. First, the absence of criminal proceedings in the state where the corrupt activities have allegedly occurred may influence arbitral tribunals’ views on the weight to be given to the corruption allegations. Second, the fact that domestic criminal proceedings are ongoing may lead the state to request a stay of the arbitral proceedings and/or the investor to request that the tribunal orders the state to stay the criminal proceedings. Lastly, final decisions rendered by domestic criminal courts may also be taken into consideration by investment arbitration tribunals.
b-Arbitra | Belgian Review of Arbitration