Cameron Miles and Mark Wassouf Appear in Commercial Court Case on Assignability of ICSID and ECT Awards
On 10 November 2025, the Commercial Court (HHJ Pelling KC) handed down judgment in OperaFund Eco-Invest SICAV PLC & Anor v Kingdom of Spain [2025] EWHC 2874 (Comm), following a two day hearing in late October 2025.
The case originates in an application for permission to enforce an investment treaty award rendered pursuant to an arbitration conducted under the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States (the ICSID Convention) and the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT).
The recent hearing concerned an application for substitution, made in the context of those enforcement proceedings, for substitution of the Claimants with a third party under CPR 19.4(2). The substitution application was advanced on the basis that the original claimants in the investment treaty arbitration had assigned the resultant award to a company called Blasket Renewable Investments LLC.
Spain opposed the substitution application on the premise that the underlying assignment was ineffective because an award rendered pursuant to the ICSID Convention (and the ECT) was not capable of assignment, as a matter of public international law and the terms of the relevant treaties, by a private award creditor without the consent of the sovereign award debtor at the time of the assignment. It followed, on Spain’s case, that the Court had no jurisdiction to allow substitution as the requirements of CPR 19.4 had not been satisfied.
In his judgment, HHJ Pelling KC refused Blasket’s application, holding: (i) that Spain was not issue estopped from contesting the assignment on the basis of a contrary finding reached by the Federal Court of Australia in a decision handed down two months prior, Blasket Renewable Investments LLC v Kingdom of Spain [2025] FCA 1028; (ii) that customary international law did not give an answer one way or another on the question of whether ICSID/ECT awards were assignable; (iii) that on a true construction of the ECT and ICSID Convention, assignment of ECT/ICSID awards was not permitted; and (iv) that the fact that the Claimants had already had the award registered ex parte under the terms of the Arbitration (International Investment Disputes) Act 1966 did not give rise to new English law rights themselves capable of assignment, and so did not change the situation.
On this basis, Blasket’s application for substitution was refused. HHJ Pelling KC gave permission, however, to Blasket appeal his decision to the Court of Appeal.
The Kingdom of Spain was represented at the hearing by Cameron Miles, instructed by Simmons and Simmons LLP. Blasket and the Claimants were represented by Mark Wassouf, led by Christopher Harris KC and instructed by Duane Morris.
The judgment is available here.
