The Challenge of the Yukos Award: an Award Written by Someone Else – a Violation of the Tribunal’s Mandate?

On July 18, 2014, the arbitral tribunal (“Tribunal”) rendered final awards (“Award”) in three cases brought by former shareholders of OAO Yukos Oil Company (“Yukos”). As already well known, the Tribunal unanimously decided that the Russian Federation had breached Article 13(1) of the Energy Charter Treaty by taking measures having an effect “equivalent to nationalization or expropriation” of the claimants’ investment in Yukos (Award, paras. 1580, 1585), and ordered the Russian Federation to pay damages in excess of USD 50 billion. However, on January 28, 2015, the Russian Federation filed three writs (“Writ”) with The Hague District Court, that seek to annul the Award, alleging, inter alia, that the arbitrators did not fulfil their mandate personally because the Tribunal’s assistant played a significant role in analyzing the evidence and legal arguments, in the Tribunal’s deliberations, and in drafting of the Award (Writ, paras. 15(b), 21(c), 363(3), 509). It is this particular ground for setting aside of the Award that is the focus of this blog post...