Search results

This paper aims to indicate that the foreign investment system in Jordan includes many provisions that create an appropriate environment for encouraging foreign investments and grant a distinctive treatment for the foreign investor that allows them the status equal to the national investor.

This study deals with the protection provided by the Jordan Government for foreign investments to attract foreign investment by studying the guarantees given by Jordan including many legal principles that encourage investment. The legal guarantees for the foreign investor enhance the confidence of the foreign investor in the host country.

The system provides a lot of guarantees with respect to non-commercial risks to which the foreign investor may be exposed.

The paper also clarifies that the role played by bilateral agreements in the field of investments, as these agreements give foreign investments a measure of protection through the guarantees and they are considered as incentives for the investor.

The study aims to focus on the effectiveness of international investment agreements (IIAs) in helping or facilitating the influx of foreign direct investment (FDI) to host developing countries.

To critically examine the topic, the black letter approach and the socio-legal analysis are adopted. The study has analysed how Mauritius, being a developing country, is responding to FDI needs from various bilateral and multilateral investment treaties concluded, and the research includes the analysis of official data publicly made available by the World Trade Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, International Monetary Fund and Mauritius governmental agencies’ reports.

From the methodologies used, it was found that other than IIAs, there are various key determinants which foreign investors consider prior to injecting their capital in developing countries in terms of environmental, social and cultural factors. Also, there are some inherent loopholes mostly in terms of monitoring, in the way IIAs are concluded and are applied in practice by and amongst signatory states.

This research is amongst the first studies to conclude the link between IIAs and FDI flows in developing countries with a particular focus on Mauritius. Additionally, an overwhelming number of studies have emphasised on the efforts to boost FDI, which are inspired mostly by action plans of developed nations, but this research will analyse the policy options adopted by China, being itself a developing country, and the extent to which such recommendations are applicable in the context of Mauritius will also be considered.

After Ma Yingjeou's re‐election in 2012, Mainland China and Taiwan will continue cooperation in economic fields. The purpose of this paper is to undertake research on a bilateral investment agreement (BIA) between Mainland China and Taiwan.

The paper uses statistics to demonstrate the growing cross‐strait investment and incompetent contemporary investment protection mechanisms in Mainland China and Taiwan. The paper also compares laws in Mainland China and Taiwan and the investment protection agreements concluded by Mainland and Taiwan with other countries, respectively.

Based on the similarities of current laws and the investment protection agreements concluded by Mainland China and Taiwan with other countries, respectively, Mainland China and Taiwan can possibility agree upon major provisions of a BIA. Solutions are provided to both macro and micro challenges against a successful BIA.

It is hard to predict whether the BIA will promote political integration between Mainland China and Taiwan in the near future.

A BIA can boost investors' confidence.

This paper may serve as a humble reference for both the Mainland China and Taiwan government when negotiating the BIA.

Cross‐strait investment is an important and prosperous field in practice, but has not been fully explored in literature thus far. This Article aims to fill this gap.

The phenomena of arbitral forum shopping to resolve a commercial investment dispute is still under development and more complicated in many states. However, for Pakistan, it seems in an evolutionary phase, where the country is struggling hard to adopt the best practice of dispute resolution through forum shopping clauses. This struggle is even more inflated with huge Chinese investment through China Pakistan economic corridor (CPEC) projects in Pakistan, which come alongside with commercial investment disputes. For this purpose, the current treaty or contract-based system between China and Pakistan and litigation based domestic civil court structure look obsolete, hence, appear to require reinstatement of forum shopping clauses under concerned treaties or contracts for CPEC investment-related issues.

The authors choose a legal research method. The research design is a comparative analysis between CPEC contracts and dispute resolution mechanism between China and Pakistan and also the domestic civil court’s litigation system. This analysis selected by the authors due to inefficient bilateral investment arrangements and efficient resolution of future commercial disputes in CPEC. While the international arbitration system is included in the assessment were particular in the time and space context. The comparison comprises on dispute resolution clauses in free trade agreement (FTA) and bilateral investment treaties (BIT) between China and Pakistan and the system of resolving disputes by CPEC clauses.

The authors finds that in the absence of CPEC forum shopping clause under dispute resolution system, Pakistan is highly at risk to lose foreign investors, and therefore, set back the goal of long term economic sustainability in the region. However, China has already made its investment policies safer with establishing three international commercial courts (also referred to as Belt and Road courts), one in Xi’an for the land-based Silk Road Economic Belt, one in Shenzhen for the Maritime Silk Road and one in Beijing that will serve as the headquarters. These courts will be offering litigation, arbitration and mediation services. According to one view, China aims to have all belt and road initiative (BRI) disputes resolved by these courts. This makes Pakistan position more awkward and needs proactive measures, as CPEC investment is based on Pakistan foreign direct investment policies and legal structure. Therefore, it will be complicated and less favourable for Pakistan to deal with such cases under Chinese Courts.

The paper’s primary contribution is finding that comprehensive analysis of alternative dispute resolution mechanism between China and Pakistan over CPEC investment is inevitable. A socio-legal research combine with an examination of Singapore International Commercial Court functions and mechanism and CPEC plans further contributes to ascertain the best model of the settlement of commercial disputes under investments in Pakistan. This research paper anticipates future economic and legal problems, which Pakistan may encounter.

This theme will be addressed through main points: Special Nature of Investment Disputes and its methods of peaceful settlement. International legal framework governing Arbitration in investment disputes: A. Multilateral legal framework. B. Bilateral legal framework/Investment promotion and protection agreementsTypes of arbitration in investment disputes. The Egyptian experience in investment disputes arbitration. The National legal framework. Egypt on the map of investment disputes in the world. A case study. Conclusion: Results related to the legal framework regulating investment disputes in Egypt. Results related to The arbitration cases against Egypt.

The researcher investigates the subject of international arbitration in investment disputes in the framework of voluntary theory, which is based on the premise that the satisfaction of people who are addressing the international legal norm is the basis of the same rule. In other words, the basis of international law is based on the satisfaction of the State and other international legal persons Both, and then express or implied consent.

Despite the availability of domestic and regional arbitration mechanisms in Egypt represented by a large number of cases.

The theme for the study primarily on Egypt and the international arbitration of investment disputes, through theoretical and practical study of disputes arbitration which Egypt is a party defendant in which to focus on what was issued in which the provisions of the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes, in an attempt to find out the reasons for the verdicts image released it, where it came mostly against Egypt, and whether these judgments against them in investment disputes due to reasons related to the legal framework of the arbitration process, or for reasons of bodies of arbitration issued by those provisions, or to the defense, which represents the Egyptian party, or to the circumstances Economic and political (which represents the investment climate).

The proposed solutions to improve the conditions and factors surrounding the arbitration disputes that Egypt is waging against foreign investors, whether they are initially alleged or accused of drafting agreements and contracts, through amending the relevant legislation and laws, selecting arbitration bodies and defense bodies.

Given the inconclusive evidence in the literature on the impact of Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flows, as well as dearth of literature on this subject matter as regards West Africa and the European Union (EU), the purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which BITs and preferential trade and investment agreements (PTIAs) triggered foreign investment flows particularly between the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) countries and the EU.

Trend analysis was used to trace the link between FDI and BITs, while panel regression models were used to investigate the impact of BITs on FDI during 1980‐2010.

Econometric results indicate that, as in most previous studies, BITs have strong positive impact on FDI in West Africa, with this impact significant at a higher level (1 per cent) for FDI flow than stock (5 per cent). The impact of BITs on FDI is significant even with the state of internal factors (such as capital account liberalisation, trade openness, high inflation rate and poor governance) in West African countries. The findings suggest that in the absence of BITs, West African countries would have suffered adversely from poor FDI inflows given their poor macroeconomic stability and governance. On the contrary, the PTIAs did not have significant impact on both FDI flows and stock. The results also show that FDI inflow to West Africa is both market and resources seeking.

Sensitivity analysis may not have been sufficient. For instance, not tested was the impact of the signalling effect of BIT, as well as other vertical FDI such as those from the USA.

The implication of the findings is that West Africa countries need to design policies and programmes that will enable them to maximise the technological spill‐over from FDI in order not to be perpetual suppliers of primary products and purchasers of manufactured goods. Further, they have to maintain macroeconomic stability and good governance. They need to understand the type of provisions in the BITs that constituent states signed and compare with the provisions of the PTIAs, with a view to discerning what is responsible for the superior response of FDI to BITs.

Given the absence of literature on the impact of BITs on FDI flows between West Africa and EU, it becomes imperative to investigate this issue with a view to motivating the investment component of the EPA, as investment is one of the Singapore issues that were removed from WTO's Doha Round.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of diplomatic activities on outward foreign direct investment (OFDI).

The paper first develops a set of hypotheses drawing insights from politics, international business and institutional theory. It then tests these hypotheses by estimation of Panel Corrected Standard Error models, using the data of Chinese OFDI flow to 131 countries over the period of 2003-2010.

The main findings are: friendly bilateral diplomatic activities help OFDI in general; bilateral diplomatic activities provide effective support to some sensitive and important investments; and bilateral diplomatic activities play an important role in host countries where institutions are absent or poor in quality.

Friendly bilateral diplomatic activities provide strong support to multinationals investing abroad.

The paper incorporates a neglected but important factor, diplomacy, into a model to analyze its influences on OFDI. It investigates not only the direct impact of diplomatic activities on OFDI but also their moderating effect on other OFDI determinants, such as economic and institutional factors.

This article aims to examine the sustainability of European and SADC states' practice of agreeing bilateral investment agreements (BITs) for the promotion and protection of foreign investments in light of the latter's recent inauguration of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) as a basic norm of regional customary international law and strategy for countering the social and economic legacy of apartheid rule on their territories for over half a century.

The approach taken is textual analysis and deconstruction of emergent SADC BEE legislation, substantive BIT legislation provisions, dispute settlement mechanisms and emergent jurisprudence on the tensions between BEE policy and BIT obligations.

The strong elements of exclusivity between European/SADC BIT dispute settlement mechanisms on the one hand, and the “ouster clauses” of SADC BEE legislation and regulations on the other, are mutually incompatible. This incompatibility threatens the sustainability of the EU/SADC states' BIT dynamic for the promotion and protection of foreign direct investments (FDIs).

Demonstration of BEE as SADC's emergent basic norm of social reconstruction for countering the social and economic legacy of apartheid rule in affected states and implications of that for EU/SADC policy on the promotion and protection of FDIs.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of the duration of free trade agreement (FTA) and bilateral investment treaty (BIT) on the foreign direct investment (FDI) flows between OECDs and different level of income countries such as upper- and lower-middle-income countries.

The authors applied the gravity model by adding more variables of interest such as trade openness, export volume, dummy and cumulative variables of FTA and BIT to find out the proper determinants of FDI attraction. Through Hasuman test, the authors find the fixed model is appropriate methodology. Hence, the authors basically use the fixed models to find the effect of the duration of FTA and BIT on FDI flows between different groups of countries.

The main results of the study are briefly summarized briefly as follows. First, the effects of FTA dummy variables and its cumulative variables are greater than those of BIT dummy variables and cumulative variables. If an FTA signifies attracting FDI as well as bilateral trade, and contains an investment agreement provision in it is included in the FTA, it can be seen that the FTA is more effective way of attracting FDI than BIT because FTA is more comprehensive agreement dealing with not only investment issues but also non-investment ones. Second, the BIT effect on FDI is only meaningful when developed countries invest in developing countries. In other words, when a country decides to invest in a developing country with a relatively poor investment environment, whether to enter into a BIT will provide investors with investment stability to gage the investment climate of the host country. Third, the BIT cumulative year effect showed a positive and significant results on FDI inflow and outflow of all cases, unlike the BIT effect. While the fact that BIT cumulative effect has a relatively less positive effect than the BIT dummy effect, implying that BIT effect was evident as time elapsed after fermentation.

The main contribution of this study is that we consider the duration of FTA and BIT explicitly in the model. Previous related studies tried to find out the effects of FTA and BIT on FDI by simply applying dummy variables of them. In this paper, by applying both dummy variables and cumulative variables of FTA and BIT that capture the duration effect, we can deeply understand the effects of national agreements dealing with investment clauses on FDI more dynamically.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of bilateral political relations on the completion stage premium of cross-border mergers and acquisitions(CSPCMA) and the moderating roles of cultural distance, trade openness and the nature of firm ownership for this relationship.

Based on a sample of 401 cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A) conducted by Chinese companies from 1995 to 2019 in the Statistical Data Center (SDC), this article used weighted least squares (WLS) to empirically test the impact of bilateral political relations between countries on the CSPCMA.

The better the target country of entry’s bilateral political relations with China, the lower the premium of the transaction price paid by Chinese companies at the completion stage of cross-border M&A. Among the moderators, the study found cultural distance positively moderates the relationship between bilateral political relations between countries and CSPCMA. The degree of trade openness of the target country negatively moderates the relationship between bilateral political relations between countries and CSPCMA. The negative relationship between bilateral political relations between countries and CSPCMA is stronger when the acquirer is a state-owned enterprise (SOE).

The findings of this study not only add to the knowledge about the relationship between bilateral political relations and corporate cross-border M&A premiums, but also have managerial implications for Chinese corporate managers to sustainably reduce corporate cross-border M&A premiums.