Lanco International, Inc. v. Argentine Republic
International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes
40 I.L.M. 457 (1998)
Lanco International (plaintiff) was a shareholder in a corporation that won a bid to build a port terminal in Argentina (defendant), under an agreement containing a forum-selection clause designating an Argentine tribunal for disputes. After a dispute arose, Lanco notified Argentina by letter in March 1997, and in September 1997 wrote again consenting to arbitration before the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) under the U.S.-Argentina bilateral investment treaty. Argentina argued ICSID lacked jurisdiction given the underlying agreement's own forum-selection clause, and the ICSID tribunal had to determine whether it had jurisdiction over the dispute at all.
Whether an investment dispute may be submitted to ICSID for arbitration under a bilateral investment treaty when the parties have not submitted the dispute to an alternative resolution method within six months of its arising.