The Czech Republic has won an arbitration case filed by a German investor who had accused the country of breaching a bilateral investment treaty and claimed it sustained serious losses to its shareholdings in a Czech forestry company.
InterTrade Holding had filed the nearly Kč 4 billion lawsuit due to alleged irregularities on the part of a Czech state agency in charge of forestry management and tendering, Lesy ČR, it sustained serious losses in its shareholding in the Czech forestry company CE Wood.
CE Wood was the largest Czech company in the sector and main partner of state-owned Lesy ČR from 2000 to 2005, when it stopped winning tenders — allegedly due to the rigging of contracts — and lost its dominant position on the market.
“I am pleased we can announce another success in a series of arbitrations and that it has long been untrue that the state cannot successfully manage international disputes,” Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek (TOP 09) said in a statement, adding it was the Czech state’s tenth victory since 2007.
