EEUU abre la puerta a ejecutar contra España laudos de renovables que fueron anulados

A US court has ruled it has the authority to enforce international decrees that were later overturned by a Swedish court, a significant shift in legal proceedings for Spain. The US District Court for the District of Columbia has determined that it has jurisdiction to hear the appeals of two decrees that condemned Spain to pay a total of 92.3 million euros, which were later annulled by the Swedish Supreme Court.

In a ruling on September 28th, Judge Tanya S. Chutkan considered these decrees to have jurisdiction under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) of the United States, despite being formally annulled by the Supreme Court of Sweden. The decrees in favor of Novenergia and Foresight, totaling 53.3 million and 39 million euros respectively, were issued by the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce's Arbitration Institute.

Only three international decrees against Spain have been annulled to date, all in Sweden: Novenergia, Foresight, and Triodos, for 10.4 million euros. These annulments were based on the incompatibility with EU arbitration law between member states and intra-European companies. However, this US court decision changes the rules of engagement, establishing that invalidity or annulment in the state of origin does not prevent US courts from exercising their jurisdiction.

This precedent opens the door for enforcing decrees that are not firm or have been declared null in their jurisdictions of origin. In the past year, US courts have ruled against Spain in nine cases, ordering the enforcement of decrees totaling 836.6 million euros. This new ruling from the US District Court for the District of Columbia paves the way for the enforcement of four decrees issued by the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), the arbitration body of the World Bank.

The new sentence in the US obliges Spain to compensate investors affected by the cases of OperaFund, Schwab, Steag, and Renergy, totaling around 90 million euros in debt owed to the US. These four decrees originated from Spanish renewable energy park investments made by companies based in Malta, Switzerland, Germany, and Luxembourg.

The companies applied for the renewable energy incentives, but decisions made between 2010 and 2014 retroactively altered the economic conditions of these investments. In all cases, the ICSID courts concluded that the Spanish State violated investors' legitimate expectations for regulatory stability, requiring compensation. Now, investors are trying to enforce these decrees in the US, and after Spain's appeal, Judge Randolph D. Moss denied the dismissal or suspension of the proceedings and ordered a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs, who are entitled to receive the full compensation awarded by the arbitration courts.