Enron Corp. v. Argentine Republic
Tribunal of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes
I.C.S.I.D. Case No. ARB/01/3 (May 22, 2007)
Argentina (defendant) enacted a Gas Law guaranteeing foreign investors, including Enron (plaintiff), that gas tariffs would be calculated in U.S. dollars and adjusted annually by the U.S. Producer Price Index, successfully attracting billions in foreign investment, but when Argentina's economy collapsed again in 1998, it passed an Emergency Law eliminating peso-dollar convertibility and abolishing those same tariff guarantees. Enron and other gas-sector investors claimed this violated Argentina's fair-and-equitable-treatment obligations under the U.S.-Argentine Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT).
Whether the fair-and-equitable-treatment standard incorporated into bilateral investment treaties requires that a nation maintain a stable framework for investments.