Four-year arbitration case settled in favour of Republic of Poland

On 5 September this year, an ad hoc arbitration tribunal in administrative proceedings before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague dismissed in full a claim brought by the company TRACO Deutsche Travertin Werke GmbH against the Republic of Poland. The case was run by the  State Treasury General Prosecutor's Office and in the arbitration proceedings the Republic of Poland was represented by the law firm Domański Zakrzewski Palinka. The claims brought by the German investor concerned the privatisation of Przedsiębiorstwo Kamienia Budowlanego in Radków.

TRACO, which in the '90s invested in one of the privatised state enterprises involved in stone extraction, accused Poland of discrimination and expropriation of its investment. The German party also claimed that Poland had treated the investor contrary to the fair and equal treatment principle.

The arbitrators found that the Polish state had not breached the provisions of the Polish-German treaty on the support and mutual protection of investments of 1989 and had not treated TRACO in a discriminatory manner. The foreign investor's claims for damages of over EUR 8 million were dismissed. The dispute with TRACO has been pending since 2008.

The experts at DZP engaged in the case were Professor Grzegorz Domański, Krzysztof Zakrzewski, Julita Zimoch-Tuchołka, Dr Marek Świątkowski and Anna Wojciechowska.