ICSID Tribunal Adopts a Restrictive View on a Most-Favored-Nation Clause | ZFZ Postcard Cases

A recently published award in a long-running dispute between a Turkish investor and Turkmenistan shows how an ICSID tribunal addressed claimant’s attempt to use the applicable MFN clause to import substantive protections from other treaties signed by respondent state.

The tribunal held that the MFN clause is meant only as a prohibition of de facto discrimination and cannot serve to import substantive protections from other BITs.

In reaching this opinion, the tribunal relied on interpretation of the specific wording of the clause and referred to the ILC’s Final Report on the Most-Favored-Nation Clause.

Read the full decision here.