Börsiteade

Pealkiri

ICSID Tribunal has reached a decision on publication of the document production information

Teade

The decision concerns the Republic of Estonia’s request to redact key
references and documents from information published on the International Centre
for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) website. In addition, the
Tribunal rejected the Republic of Estonia’s claim, stating that AS Tallinna
Vesi had conducted a media campaign against the Republic of Estonia. 

On 9th of June 2016, the Tribunal of the ICSID, notified the parties of its
position on the publication of Annexes A and B to the Tribunal’s 3rd of May
2016, Procedural Order No. 3. 

Procedural Order No. 3 set out the parties’ arguments on document production
and the Tribunal’s rulings on the same. Annexes A and B to the Procedural Order
No. 3 contained Claimants’ and Respondent’s Document Requests with Tribunal’s
decisions regarding the requests. 

The Republic of Estonia had previously objected to the publication of Annexes A
and B to the Procedural Order No. 3, and requested extensive redactions to the
published versions of the Annexes. The redactions included any reference to the
Estonian Ministries and Ministers, the Estonian Parliament and its members, the
Estonian Competition Authority, the State Audit Office, the Legal Chancellor,
the City of Tallinn, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and
the European Commission. In contrast, AS Tallinna Vesi supported the
publication of the Annexes in full without redaction, but as a compromise was
prepared to accept redactions related to; direct quotations from the parties’
submissions, witness statements and expert reports and the names of witnesses
and experts. 

On 9th of June 2016, the Tribunal notified the parties, that it considered only
limited redactions to be reasonable and instructed ICSID to publish the Annexes
with only the following information redacted: (i) direct quotations from the
parties' submissions, witness statements and expert reports, and exhibits; and
(ii) the names of witnesses and experts, as well as third parties other than
those which (or who) plainly exercise public functions. 

The Tribunal did not redact its rulings in Annex B to the Procedural Order No.
3. Among others, the Government of Estonia claimed that AS Tallinna Vesi has
been engaged in a media campaign against the Government of Estonia and sought
to require AS Tallinna Vesi to disclose various documents on this basis. The
Tribunal rejected this request, stating following: “The Tribunal is not
persuaded of the relevance and/or the materiality of the parties’ so-called
media campaigns.” 

Procedural Order No. 3, attaching the annexes, is available on the ICSID
website here. Other procedural orders and decisions issued during the
arbitration proceedings, subject to the redaction of confidential information,
are available on the ICSID website. The final hearing remains scheduled for
November 2016. 


Background:

In October 2014, AS Tallinna Vesi and its shareholder United Utilities
(Tallinn) B.V., registered in the Kingdom of The Netherlands, commenced
international arbitration proceedings against the Republic of Estonia for
breach of the Agreement on the Encouragement and Reciprocal Protection of
Investments between the Kingdom of The Netherlands and the Republic of Estonia. 


         Mariliis Mia Topp
         AS Tallinna Vesi
         Head of Communications
         Ph: (+372) 62 62 275
         [email protected]