Ricardo Machado v. Angola

Case summary

At a glance

Parties: Ricardo Filomeno Duarte Ventura Leitão Machado (Portugal) v. Republic of Angola
Case no.: ICSID Case No. ARB/24/8
Forum and rules: ICSID Convention arbitration; ICSID Arbitration Rules 2022; place of proceeding Washington, D.C.; UNCITRAL Transparency Rules applied under the BIT
Treaty: Portugal–Angola BIT (signed 22 February 2008, in force 24 April 2020; revised version in force 22 December 2021)
Tribunal: Ms. Valeria Galíndez (President), Mr. Alfonso Iglesia, Prof. Diego P. Fernández Arroyo
Sector: Electricity generation; gas turbines
Outcome: Pending. On 29 May 2025 the Tribunal unanimously rejected Angola's Rule 41 objection for manifest lack of legal merit (ratione temporis), deferred costs and ordered the case to continue. The latest published document is a decision on document production (19 February 2026).
Amount: Damages claimed: not stated in the published documents. For the Rule 41 phase, Angola claimed costs of USD 1,249,793.40 (USD 250,000.00 ICSID/Tribunal fees and USD 999,793.40 legal fees and expenses). The decision on these costs was deferred.

The dispute

Mr. Machado, a Portuguese national, brought claims through his interest in Aenergy, S.A. Aenergy held thirteen contracts with Angola's Ministry of Energy and Water (MINEA) for power-generation services and equipment. The claim concerns four GE TM2500 GEN8 turbines (the "Four Turbines"). The Provincial Court of Luanda ordered them preventively seized in 2019, and they were meant to be held in the custody of IGAPE, the State's asset-management institute. The Claimant alleges that in 2022 Angola removed the turbines from judicial custody and installed them in State-owned power plants. He relies on this conduct for claims of unlawful expropriation (Article 7 of the BIT) and breach of fair and equitable treatment and full protection and security. Angola argues that the relevant acts (the 2019 contract terminations and seizure, and the 2021 deployment) predate the revised BIT's entry into force on 22 December 2021, which Article 2(1) excludes. On the merits Angola also argues that the turbines are not a protected investment, that they were obtained through fraud involving forged letters of intent, and that the Claimant suffered no recoverable damage.

Key holdings

The Tribunal applied the test from Trans-Global v. Jordan, which both Parties accepted. An objection succeeds only if it is established clearly and obviously, with relative ease and dispatch. The claimant's factual allegations are accepted unless they are incredible, frivolous, vexatious, inaccurate or made in bad faith. Decision on Rule 41 Objection ¶¶ 78–80
From his Request for Arbitration onwards, the Claimant has placed the deployment and installation of the Four Turbines in 2022. Angola did not really dispute that timeline. On the Claimant's factual premises, it is therefore neither clear nor obvious that the claims fall outside the temporal scope of the BIT. The ratione temporis objection was rejected unanimously. Decision on Rule 41 Objection ¶¶ 83–86, 94, 103
Statements Aenergy made in the U.S. proceedings do not constrain how the Claimant presents his case, since the parties are different. Whether the post-treaty facts amount to treaty breaches is a question for the merits, not for early dismissal under Rule 41. Decision on Rule 41 Objection ¶¶ 88–89
The Tribunal found AHG Industry v. Iraq (where the treaty never entered into force) and Carrizosa v. Colombia (jurisdiction declined after a full hearing) irrelevant to the Rule 41 question. The decision does not prejudge jurisdiction or the merits (Rule 41(4)). Decision on Rule 41 Objection ¶¶ 90–92
Angola argued for the first time in its Reply that the Claimant lacked standing for the FET and FPS claims. The Tribunal did not consider this argument, because the Rule 41 objection had been framed solely on ratione temporis grounds. Decision on Rule 41 Objection ¶ 93
The decision on the costs of the Rule 41 phase was deferred to a later stage. Decision on Rule 41 Objection ¶¶ 102–103
Decision on document production. The Tribunal refused the Claimant's request to strike ¶¶ 88–177 of Angola's reply, finding that both Parties had misused the document-production submissions to argue the merits. It partly granted Angola's requests, including production of the LCIA witness statements, hearing transcripts and final award. It ordered Claimant's counsel to give a sworn statement that no documents respond to Requests 19, 20, 23 and 25. Procedural Order No. 3 ¶¶ 15, 26–30; Annex A