1. Yukos Universal v. Russian Federation; Hulley Enterprises v. Russian Federation; Veteran Petroleum v. Russian Federation
Amount in controversy: $114 billion
Claimant’s counsel: Shearman & Sterling;
De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek
Respondent’s counsel: Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton; Baker Botts; Hanotiau & van den Berg
The largest award on the largest claim in arbitration history. Will it ever lead to the largest recovery? On July 18, 2014, the arbitral tribunal found that, under the guise of collecting taxes, Russia bankrupted Yukos Oil Company to facilitate the transfer of its assets to Rosneft and other state-owned enterprises, in violation of a European investment protection pact known as the Energy Charter Treaty. The arbitrators awarded Yukos’s former majority shareholders $50 billion, as well as 75 percent of their legal fees and 100 percent of their arbitration costs, plus interest as of this year at the rate of the yield on 10-year U.S. treasury bonds. Russia has filed set-aside proceedings in the Netherlands at the District Court of The Hague, which are pending.

2. SUAL Partners Limited v. EN+ Group Limited, United Company RUSAL plc, Glencore International A.G., and Oleg Deripaska
Amount in controversy: $48 billion
Claimant’s counsel: DLA Piper; Brick Court Chambers
Respondent’s counsel: Linklaters; Kirkland & Ellis; Ashurst; Bryan Cave; 4 Stone Buildings; Blackstone Chambers
Intramural warfare among oligarchs of Russian origin has been a gold mine for London lawyers, or in this case an aluminum mine. RUSAL minority shareholder SUAL said it was robbed by RUSAL of its right to veto an aluminum supply contract, valued at $47 billion, between the Swiss commodities trader Glencore and RUSAL (majority owned by Oleg Deripaska’s EN+). A January 2014 confidential settlement resulted in the withdrawal of all claims against RUSAL. The fight continued among SUAL, Glencore and En+ as to the interpretation of certain shareholder arrangements. After a two-day hearing in London, the arbitrators ruled on these discrete questions in April 2014, and the matter is now closed.

3. Renee Rose Levy de Levi and Gremcitel SA v. Republic of Peru
Amount in controversy: $41 billion
Claimant’s counsel: Paitan and Associates
Respondent’s counsel: Sidley Austin
A French investor argued that Peru destroyed her planned tourism and real estate megaproject near Lima when it found the parcel to lie within a protected zone designated to honor a major battle in the 1879-1883 war between Peru and Chile. The panel found that claimants had falsified documents and executed a transfer of shares in Gremcitel (a Peruvian company) to Levy de Levi (a French citizen) with the goal of manufacturing French nationality for the company and internationalizing the dispute. The arbitrators dismissed the claim for abuse of process,

4. BOTAS Petroleum Pipeline Corporation v.
National Iranian Gas Company
Amount in controversy: $38 billion
Claimant’s counsel: Lalive
Respondent’s counsel: Python & Peter; Essex Court Chambers
A gas pricing dispute under a 25-year contract for the supply of gas by Iran to Turkey’s national pipeline company. In its partial award in November 2014, the arbitral tribunal dismissed BOTAS’s claim for a price reduction valued at $13 billion. The remaining claim for $25 billion is pending.


5. Conoco Phillips Company et al. v. Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
Amount in controversy: $31.7 billion
Claimant’s counsel: Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer; Three Crowns
Respondent’s counsel: Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle
When Conoco refused to accept his steep tax and royalty hikes in 2007, then-President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela seized Conoco’s stakes in three oil projects that now produce about 367,000 barrels of oil per day. A World Bank panel found in September 2013 that, although the tax and royalty hikes were lawful, Venezuela had failed “to negotiate in good faith” to compensate Conoco for its nationalization. A request for reconsideration—based on Wikileaks cables purportedly showing that Venezuela made a good faith offer to compensate Conoco for the projects’ fair market value in 2008—was denied. The determination of damages has been on hold as Venezuela seeks to disqualify the arbitrator L. Yves Fortier based on an alleged conflict arising from his relationship with Norton Rose Fulbright, where he is chairman emeritus of the verein’s Canadian arm. In 2014 Conoco subsidiaries filed two parallel contract arbitrations against Venezuela’s state oil company.

6. Naftogaz v. Gazprom
Amount in controversy: More than $23 billion
Claimant’s counsel: Wikborg Rein
Respondent’s counsel: DLA Piper
Ukraine’s Naftogaz filed claims relating to the supply, pricing and transit of gas after Russia’s Gazprom turned off the spigot in June 2014, when Naftogaz stopped payment against the backdrop of separatist unrest by Russian nationalists in eastern Ukraine. Russia has counterclaimed for unpaid debt. Threshold issues arise as to the application and effect of the 2006 Energy Community Treaty—a rarely (perhaps never) litigated agreement designed to extend the EU’s internal energy market rules to interested non-EU countries in Europe, distinct from the 1994 Energy Charter Treaty. This is believed to be the biggest dispute ever pursued in Stockholm arbitration.

7. BM-S-11 Consortium, Petrobras, Petrogal, and BG Group v. Brazilian National Petroleum Agency
Amount in controversy: $22.3 billion
Claimant’s counsel: Baker & McKenzie; Trench, Rossi e Watanabe Advogados
Respondent’s counsel: In-house
Renamed the Lula in honor of Brazil’s former president, the Tupi oil field was the Western Hemisphere’s biggest oil find in 30 years at its discovery in 2006. In its quest to get the oil out of the ground, a consortium of energy companies from Brazil, Britain and Portugal filed a Rio de Janeiro ICC arbitration against their Brazilian regulator in 2014. The case raises groundbreaking issues as to the breadth of arbitral review over administrative proceedings, and the discretion wielded by a regulator overseeing a concession agreement to explore and produce oil and gas in the deep offshore environment of a pre-salt oil formation. The ICC suspended the arbitration in May 2014 pending an anti-arbitration suit filed by the Brazilian agency. The damages claimed are 50 billion reals.

8. Mobil Corporation et al. v. Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
Amount in controversy: $16 billion plus interest
Claimant’s counsel: Covington & Burling; Three Crowns
Respondent’s counsel: Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle
Another treaty claim for the expropriation of heavy crude projects during Hugo Chavez’s 2007 restructuring of the oil sector. In a 2008 London high court hearing, a Mobil affiliate temporarily froze $12 billion in worldwide assets belonging to Venezuela’s national oil company. But in contrast to the Conoco tribunal, the Mobil tribunal deemed the expropriation lawful, and therefore valued the project at the time of seizure, before it increased greatly in value.
In October 2014 the Mobil tribunal awarded only $1.6 billion on a claim for $16 billion. Venezuela is seeking to annul that award. It also seeks to offset against the $900 million (excluding counterclaims) that was awarded its state oil company in the parallel contract arbitration of 2011.

9. Global Telecom Holding S.A.E. v. People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria
Amount in controversy: $16 billion
Claimant’s counsel: Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher
Respondent’s counsel: Shearman & Sterling
This was a dispute over the Algerian mobile phone business Djezzy. The claimant, known as Orascom before it was bought by VimpelCom, said that Algeria expropriated Djezzy, or otherwise treated the investor unfairly in violation of treaty. Algeria denied it. Under the terms of the parties’ settlement of January 2015, Global Telecom received $3.8 billion in net cash payments and retains a 49 percent interest in Djezzy, which it now co-owns in a joint venture with the Algerian National Investment Fund. Weather Investments (a former shareholder in Global Telecom) is pursuing its own treaty claims against Algeria.

10. Opportunity Fund et al. v. Telecom Italia International N.V. and Telecom Italia S.p.A.
Amount in controversy: $15 billion
Claimant’s counsel: Shearman & Sterling; Betto Seraglini
Respondent’s counsel: Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton
A group of Brazilian hedge funds, along with Brazilian bankers Daniel Dantas and Dorio Ferman, filed ICC arbitration claims in 2012 against Telecom Italia under Brazilian law in Paris. They allege that Telecom Italia breached a settlement that resolved a cluster of disputes over control of Brasil Telecom. The case, which is ongoing, also involves allegations of corruption to facilitate the signing of the settlement.