Ref. Ares(2017)3715482 - 24/07/2017
Ref. Ares(2017)4070668 - 17/08/2017
Report of participation at the Annual Conference of the German-Chinese Lawyers
Association
Frankfurt, 28 October 2016
On the 28th of October 2016 I participated as a speaker in the annual conference of the
German-Chinese Lawyers Association and gave a presentation on the EU-China Investment
Agreement negotiations.
The conference was well attended by both German and Chinese lawyers as well as academics
and students. All presentations – other than mine – were in German.
I referred to the launching of the negotiations, their significance from a political, practical and
economic perspective, the objectives purposed by the EU side, the scope and the state of play
of the negotiations. I also explained the EU proposed reforms on investment protection and
the investment court system and clarified that these reforms have been presented to China.
There were a few questions only regarding the relation of existing MS BITs with China and
the ongoing negotiation, the EU's position to no longer pursue arbitration as a means to
resolve investment disputes, the NDRC's involvement in the negotiations and the link with
China's internal reforms.
I explained that once the EU-China investment agreement enters into force, individual MS
BITs with China will be replaced, confirmed that under the investment court system claims by
individual investors remain possible but the framework of their adjudication is different
indeed to classical arbitration and stated that we are following closely also China's internal
reform initiatives.
Art. 4.1(b)