Practice area:

Dispute resolution

Sector:

Transport
Offices: London, Paris

Project in brief:

Advising the Channel Tunnel owner and operator Eurotunnel on its arbitration claim over the financial losses it sustained between 1999 and 2002 as a result of public order problems surrounding the Sangatte hostel.

Issues:

This was the first time anywhere in the world that a company has launched an arbitration claim simultaneously against two national governments. Eurotunnel’s case, based on a provision in the Treaty and the Concession Agreement under which it operated the tunnel, was that the two governments’ failure to act over the public order issues surrounding the Sangatte hostel had damaged its business financially.

The case involved significant cross-jurisdictional issues under public international law, English common law and French civil law. The Hague arbitration tribunal’s ruling in Eurotunnel’s favour established new principles in public international law, requiring the governments to pay money to a project they had not financed themselves.