BakerHostetler’s “Intra-EU” Objection Compendium

Since the Court of Justice of the European Union’s controversial Achmea (2018) and Komstroy (2021) decisions, EU Member States have consistently raised the so-called “intra-EU” jurisdictional objection when facing either investment arbitrations brought by investors of another EU Member State or enforcement actions by an award creditor in domestic courts. The “intra-EU” objection, if sustained, deprives an arbitral tribunal of jurisdiction over a treaty-based arbitration between an investor from an EU State, on the one hand, and an EU respondent-State, on the other hand, because of the alleged exclusive jurisdiction of EU courts to interpret matters of EU law. If the objection was dismissed by the arbitral tribunal, recent practice shows that the “intra-EU” objection may emerge in enforcement proceedings as one of arbitrability or similar grounds.

This objection has been framed in various ways, invoked under numerous treaties, and litigated before dozens of international arbitration tribunals and domestic courts. A large majority of arbitral tribunals have rejected the “intra-EU” objection. Similarly, only courts located in the EU have upheld the objection as a defense to the enforcement of arbitral awards.

This resource comprehensively lists publicly available arbitral and domestic court decisions analyzing the “intra-EU” objection. The objective of this database is to centralize a global repository of these cases as a resource to assess the overall viability of the objection worldwide, the outcome of each case, and access to the content of each decision. While this database will be updated periodically as new decisions are issued, we acknowledge that not all arbitral tribunal or court decisions are publicly available and readers may be aware of additional decisions or details. To that end, we kindly ask that any proposed revisions or general feedback are e-mailed to the Key Contacts listed on this page.

Key Contacts

Carlos Ramos-Mrosovsky

Paul Levine

James East

Jillian Timko

Kayla Auza

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