Kuwait’s Agility gets new opportunity to arbitrate against Iraq
A warehouse belonging to Kuwait’s logistics company, Agility. Photo: Agility
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – The Kuwaiti logistics company received a new opportunity to resubmit its claims before a new arbitration panel under the auspices of the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) regarding the company’s investments in Iraq.
In 2021, the arbitration panel at the ICSID of the World Bank Group rejected a lawsuit filed by Agility to recover more than $380 million that it said it lost in Iraq.
The arbitration panel also ordered Agility, one of the largest logistics companies in the Gulf, to pay more than $5 million to Iraq for costs related to this case.
In a statement released on Sunday, Agility announced that the earlier arbitration panel’s decision had been partially nullified by an ICSID committee that had accepted its appeal.
The Kuwaiti firm added that the committee announced a partial cancellation of the original ruling issued in 2021. This decision will enable Agility to resubmit its claims before the arbitration panel again.
The case dates back to 2017, when the company submitted a request to the ICSID, saying that Iraq indirectly confiscated its investments valued at more than $380 million and violated a bilateral agreement concluded in 2015 between Kuwait and Iraq regarding the movement of capital and investment between the two countries.
Agility added at the time that Iraq deprived it and its subsidiaries of the ability to appeal a decision issued by Iraq’s Communications and Media Commission (CMC) in 2014 to cancel Agility’s investment in Korek Telecom, an Iraqi Kurdish mobile phone operator company in Erbil.