We secured a comprehensive victory for the Kingdom of Bahrain in an ICC case, brought by French company Constructions Industrielles de la Méditerranée (CNIM), under a contract to design, build, and operate a waste-to-energy plant in Bahrain. The claim – for over €180 million – was dismissed in its entirety, with the tribunal accepting essentially all of the defences advanced and also awarding the Kingdom over $5 million in costs. The matter raised complex issues concerning the financing of major projects in the Middle East amid the Arab Spring and the aftermath of the global financial crisis, as well as the environmental risks presented by waste-to-energy plants and how companies can establish to the satisfaction of regulators that they are mitigated. The case involved extensive written and oral expert evidence on both project financing and environmental issues, as well as on fundamental questions of Bahraini constitutional and administrative law.
9 April 2020