Procedural Posture and Issues

This document is the decision of a newly constituted ICSID Tribunal (the "Revision Tribunal") on a preliminary objection filed by the Claimants under ICSID Arbitration Rule 41(5). The Claimants sought the summary dismissal of the Kingdom of Spain's application for revision of the final award rendered on 21 January 2020 (the "Watkins Award"). The central legal issue was whether Spain's request for revision was "manifestly without legal merit" because it failed to satisfy the strict, cumulative conditions for revision set forth in Article 51 of the ICSID Convention.

Parties' Positions

The Respondent, Spain, based its revision application on the discovery of an alleged "new fact": the Decision on Annulment issued by an ad hoc Committee on 21 February 2023. Spain argued that this decision confirmed and "crystallized" the existence of a computational error in the damages calculation of the Watkins Award—an error the original Tribunal had declined to correct in a prior rectification proceeding. Spain contended that the Annulment Committee's finding constituted a fact of a nature to decisively affect the award, which was unknown at the time the award was rendered.

The Claimants countered that Spain's application was an abuse of process. They argued that the Annulment Decision was not a "fact" within the meaning of Article 51, as it post-dated the award and could not have existed at the time of its rendering. Furthermore, the underlying alleged error was known to Spain since the award was issued, as demonstrated by its previous, unsuccessful applications for rectification and annulment on the very same grounds. Consequently, the Claimants asserted that Spain's request manifestly failed to meet any of the conditions for revision.

Tribunal's Analysis and Decision

The Revision Tribunal found Spain's arguments to be "farfetched and paradoxical." It affirmed the high threshold for revision under Article 51, emphasizing that a qualifying "fact" must have existed at the time of the award but was unknown to both the tribunal and the applicant. The Tribunal held that the Annulment Decision, being a subsequent legal decision, could not, by definition, constitute a pre-existing fact. To accept Spain's argument would, in the Tribunal's view, undermine the finality of ICSID awards by allowing any subsequent decision by another body to form the basis for a revision application.

The Tribunal concluded that Spain had failed to establish the existence of a newly discovered fact that was unknown at the time of the award. On this basis alone, the application was manifestly without legal merit. The Tribunal did not need to consider the other conditions of Article 51.

Operative Rulings

The Revision Tribunal granted the Claimants' application and dismissed Spain's Request for Revision in its entirety as manifestly without legal merit. Consequently, the Tribunal ordered Spain to bear all costs of the revision proceedings, including the fees and expenses of the Tribunal, ICSID's administrative fees, and the Claimants' legal fees and expenses. The Tribunal also noted that, in accordance with Rule 54(3) of the ICSID Rules, the provisional stay of enforcement of the Watkins Award was automatically terminated upon the issuance of this decision.