Paul Hastings Partner Advises on Investment Arbitration Victory

Paul Hastings LLP Partner Jonathan C. Hamilton advised global telecommunications company Telefonica, S.A. in obtaining a unanimous international arbitration award of $380 million plus interest and costs in a proceeding before the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) at the World Bank, as reported in Global Arbitration Review.

The high-profile result marks the largest known investment arbitration award ever obtained against the Republic of Colombia, which previously defeated or limited damages in a range of cases brought by investors, including in the telecommunications sector. The case arose under a bilateral investment treaty between Spain and Colombia and related to a concession agreement to develop and provide mobile services in the country and whether assets would revert to the state at the end of the concession. 

“Foreign investment is critically important to strategic sectors such as telecommunications,” commented Hamilton, Paul Hastings’ Global Co-Chair of International Arbitration. “The victory demonstrates that investment arbitration is alive and well as tool to promote and protect foreign investment under a longstanding and widespread system of international treaties.”

About Paul Hastings

With widely recognized elite teams in finance, mergers & acquisitions, private equity, restructuring and special situations, litigation, arbitration, employment, and real estate, Paul Hastings is a premier law firm providing intellectual capital and superior execution globally to the world’s leading investment banks, asset managers, and corporations.