Received 3 responses from three MEPs all from different parties regarding the TTIP, for shits and giggles will let you guess which party sent which reply... No 1. Dear Andy Many thanks for your e-mail to which Chris has asked me to respond on his behalf. There is a lot of misleading stuff in the media regarding the TTIP and in particular on the ISDS principle. Offering companies a mechanism is reasonable in the event that those companies demonstrate that one or more of the investment protection standards, such as non-discrimination or protection against unlawful exploitation have not been respected. The fact that a government changes a law, which increases the costs for a given company, is not on its own sufficient to bring a successful case in investor-state dispute settlement. The European Commission wants the agreement to ensure that legislation reflecting legitimate public choices, e.g. on the environment, cannot be undermined through investor-state dispute settlement. My understanding is that experience so far has shown that tribunals do not consider it appropriate to undermine public choices and that there is also little evidence investor-state dispute settlements are biased in favour of investors, with a majority of cases decided in favour of the government. Nonetheless, the European Union is committed to protecting countries from this kind of tactic, for example by advocating that the costs must always be borne by the losing party, which would act as a deterrent for investors to bringing tactical claims, and for ensuring the prompt dismissal of unsubstantiated claims in order to avoid unnecessary litigation. If you want to provide me with a brief example of any further concerns I can always pass them on for you. With best regards,
Posted on: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 19:11:20 +0000
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