Global Arbitration Review

A decision in one of a series of previously unreported cases brought by a Balkan investor against Austria saw arbitrator Rolf Knieper cleared of far-fetched accusations of bias based on his West German upbringing at the time of the Cold War and his alleged concealment of information about relatives who may have fought on the side of Germany in World War II.

Russia’s Gazprom has brought a lawsuit in St Petersburg against a Dutch state-owned award creditor and its counsel, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek.

South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal has rescinded an order to enforce a German investor’s €50 million award against Lesotho over a supply contract allegedly signed by a minister “on a frolic of his own” – while finding the state was too late in its bid to set the award aside.

The Belgian Center for Arbitration and Mediation, CEPANI, has a new president, Vanessa Foncke of Jones Day in Brussels, as her precedessor Benoît Kohl becomes honorary president.

A majority ICSID tribunal has upheld jurisdiction in a case brought against Bahrain by a trading subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company over an alleged politically-motivated expropriation carried out through the blocking of funds in the Gulf state's banks.