Eléctricas de Medellín Ingeniería y Servicios S.A.S. v. Republic of Honduras

At a glance

Parties

Eléctricas de Medellín – Ingeniería y Servicios S.A.S. (EDEMSA), a company of Colombia, v. the Republic of Honduras

Case no.

ICSID Case No. ARB/24/24

Forum and rules

ICSID Convention arbitration; ICSID Arbitration Rules in force from 1 July 2022; place of proceeding Washington, D.C.; language Spanish

Treaty

Free Trade Agreement between Colombia and El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras of 9 August 2007, in force between Colombia and Honduras since 27 March 2010 (Chapter 12)

Tribunal

Prof. Diego P. Fernández Arroyo (President), Prof. Guido Santiago Tawil, Mr. Luis A. González García

Outcome

Pending. The proceeding was bifurcated to hear Honduras's six jurisdictional objections, and a hearing on jurisdiction was set for 27–29 July 2026. The published documents do not show the outcome.

The dispute

EDEMSA, a company incorporated in Colombia, brought ICSID claims against Honduras under the investment chapter of the 2007 Colombia–Central America Free Trade Agreement. Its claims concern thirteen alleged violating measures. They include a subordinate claim and claims under the treaty's most-favoured-nation and national treatment clauses; its Memorial was filed with a damages report by Compass Lexecon. The published documents are procedural only and do not describe the investment or the measures in detail. Honduras raised six jurisdictional objections: (i) the fork-in-the-road clause, because EDEMSA had litigated in Honduran courts; (ii) failure to exhaust local remedies; (iii) no valid waiver under the treaty; (iv) no consent to the subordinate claim; (v) Honduras's denunciation of the ICSID Convention had already taken effect; and (vi) no jurisdiction ratione materiae over the most-favoured-nation and national treatment claims.

Key holdings

1. The proceeding is bifurcated so that the six objections can be heard first. Both parties read Article 12.23.5 of the Treaty as requiring bifurcation, so the Tribunal did not apply ICSID Arbitration Rule 44(2). Procedural Order No. 2, ¶¶ 20–23, 27
2. Article 12.23.5 obliges the Tribunal to decide the preliminary objections, but not necessarily to rule on them definitively. Following Grupo Energía Bogotá v. Guatemala, the Tribunal may uphold an objection, reject it, or join it to the merits. Procedural Order No. 2, ¶¶ 25–26
3. EDEMSA's request to exclude the Honduran-law report of Julio Rendón Cano, filed with Honduras's Reply, is rejected. § 17.1 of Procedural Order No. 1 allows rebuttal evidence with the Reply, and the report responded directly to measures EDEMSA identified in its Counter-Memorial. EDEMSA suffered no real prejudice, and exclusion would be disproportionate. Costs of the incident are reserved. Procedural Order No. 3, ¶¶ 37–47, 49
4. The Tribunal did not decide where the burden of proof lies on the jurisdictional requirements at this stage. Doing so would prejudge the objections. Procedural Order No. 3, ¶¶ 31, 44
5. José Antonio Rivas, Honduras's international-law expert, appears as an expert, not as a fact witness, although he headed Colombia's negotiating team for the Treaty. Under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, the travaux préparatoires are a legal matter for the Tribunal. Procedural Order No. 4, ¶¶ 36–40
6. Honduras's request that Dr. Rivas be heard, although EDEMSA had not called him, is granted under § 19.2 of Procedural Order No. 1. That provision gives the Tribunal a broad discretion. His appearance adds little burden to a three-day hearing and is useful to test his interpretive inferences from the negotiating history. Costs of the incident are reserved. Procedural Order No. 4, ¶¶ 32–34, 42–56
7. The jurisdiction hearing is held in person and in public at the ICSID Hearing Centre in Washington, D.C., from 27 to 29 July 2026, with a maximum of 20 effective hearing hours. Procedural Order No. 5, ¶¶ 23–34

Procedural history

1. 8 February 2024Notice of Intent.
2. 14 June 2024Request for Arbitration.
3. 5 December 2024Tribunal constituted.
4. 15 January 2025Procedural Order No. 1 sets the procedural rules and alternative timetables, after the first session on 14 January 2025.
5. 15 April 2025Claimant's Memorial filed with the Compass Lexecon damages report.
6. 11 June 2025Procedural Order No. 2: the proceeding is bifurcated to hear Honduras's six jurisdictional objections.
7. October 2025Honduras files its Memorial on Jurisdictional Objections with the first expert report of José Antonio Rivas.
8. 30 March 2026Procedural Order No. 3: the request to exclude the Rendón Cano report is rejected.
9. 2 June 2026Procedural Order No. 4: Dr. Rivas is to appear at the hearing.
10. 29 June 2026Procedural Order No. 5 organises the hearing on jurisdiction for 27–29 July 2026.

Tribunal, counsel and experts

Decided by

• Diego P. Fernández Arroyo President
• Guido Santiago Tawil Co-arbitrator
• Luis González García Co-arbitrator

For the claimant

Clifford Chance · Inter Global Legal World Services, S.A. de C.V.

For the respondent

Procuraduría General de la República de Honduras · Foley Hoag LLP

Experts

José Antonio Rivas (respondent) · Julio Rendón Cano (respondent) · Compass Lexecon (claimant)

Run a conflict check on these names →

Keywords

• Colombia–Central America FTA
• Colombia–Honduras
• bifurcation
• jurisdictional objections
• fork in the road
• exhaustion of local remedies
• waiver
• ICSID Convention denunciation
• most-favoured-nation treatment
• national treatment
• subordinate claim
• exclusion of expert report
• rebuttal evidence
• travaux préparatoires
• expert witness
• Grupo Energía Bogotá
• EDEMSA

Summary generated with AI from the published documents — refer to the award for the authoritative text.