Do you know that Bulgaria claims that it has never lost a case at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID)? This is a half-truth spread in bad faith! The sad reality, which Bulgaria manages to hide through loopholes in ICSID’s rules and regulations and large-scale misinformation campaigns, is that Bulgaria has settled with claimants many times. Sometimes these campaigns mislead even people with experience in arbitration how a case ended.

Countries usually settle with investors when they fear that there is a good possibility that they will lose a case. Why might this signal rule of law decay? Bulgaria’s case amply shows that the Ministry of Finance settles with claimants and then lies to the public that it won the case to hide evidence of unlawful conduct and/or crimes in office by public officials. This, of course, spares the latter accountability.

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