Image: Oil and Gas Law Illustration.

Oil and Gas Investment Arbitrations III - Schedule

Washburn Law's Oil and Gas Law Center and International and Comparative Law Center, the University of Houston Law Center, and the International Law Institute are sponsoring "Oil and Gas Investment Arbitrations III: A Critical View of Investment Arbitration" on Friday, September 16, 2016. This symposium will be held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Houston, Texas.

Program co-chairs are:

Photograph: Julian Cardenas. Photograph: Ian Laird. Photograph: Frederic Sourgens.

  • Professor Julián Cárdenas (Environment, Energy & Natural Resources Center, Univ. of Houston)
  • Professor Ian Laird (Crowell & Moring LLP; International Law Institute)
  • Professor Frédéric Sourgens (Oil and Gas Law Center, Washburn University School of Law)

Schedule

8:00-8:15 a.m. – Registration

8:15-8:30 a.m.
Welcoming Remarks

  • Dean Leonard Baynes, Dean and Professor of Law, University of Houston Law Center

8:30-9:00 a.m.
Considerations for Natural Gas Investments in an Evolving Global Market

Photograph: Greg Hopper.

  • Greg W. Hopper, Vice President, Head of Americas Gas & Power Consulting, Wood Mackenzie.
Global opportunities for natural gas market growth have never been greater, but so, too are the uncertainties confronting the industry. In particular, future gas demand profiles raise important new risk allocation and mitigation questions. How commodity and infrastructure asset operators answer those questions will in many cases differentiate successful from marginal investments. In this presentation we provide an overview of the long term outlook for natural gas and the commercial considerations that will shape forward market transactions.

9:00-10:00 a.m.
Panel 1: The Transpacific Partnership – Impact on Investment Arbitrations in the Oil and Gas Sector.

The panel will address the ongoing debates about the Transpacific Partnership (TPP) and its particular impact on oil and gas investments in the Pacific region. The panelists will discuss the particular implications of the TPP investment chapter on ongoing oil and gas investments in the region, as well as on future prospects. The panelists will further address whether the TPP as a whole is likely to encourage and stabilize investment flows in the region beyond the bilateral approach previously undertaken.

10:00 - Coffee Break

10:15-11:15 a.m.
Panel 2: Annulment in the Oil and Gas Sector

The panel will address how ICSID annulment standards are applied in the oil and gas sector. Specifically, the panel will look to apply the manifest excess of power annulment standard to questions typically faced by investment arbitrations – namely whether typical oil development project structures are at odds with legal rules constraining tribunal jurisdiction and questions of applicable law in the oil and gas sector.

11:15 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Keynote Speaker

A Critical View of Investment Arbitration Based on Ecuadorian Experience: An Analysis of the Investor-state Dispute settlement, Its Flaws, Contradictions and Proposals for a Change. (presentation of new book)

Photograph: Diego Garcia Carrion.

  • Dr. Diego García Carrión, Attorney General, Republic of Ecuador

12:30-2:00 p.m. – Lunch

2:00-3:15 p.m.
Panel 3: Applicable Law in Environmental Counterclaims

The panel will address the question of applicable law in the context of environmental counterclaims. It will discuss potentially applicable choice of law rules in the context of investment treaty arbitration counterclaims. It will further explore the potential emergence of a transnational law on environmental liability in the investor-state arbitration context and its relationship to traditional international law sources.

3:15-3:30 p.m. – Coffee Break

3:30-5:00 p.m.
Panel 4: Renewable Energy and Investment Arbitration

The panel will address the emergence of the renewable energy industry onto the global scene. The panel will discuss the regulatory responses to the renewable energy sector (both in the U.S. and abroad). It will address how changes in this regulatory environment have led to significant investor-state arbitration claims and will prognosticate what types of claims are likely to result from the current energy economy.

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