This Decision addresses the Claimant’s application for provisional measures pursuant to Article 47 of the ICSID Convention and Arbitration Rule 39. The Tribunal was asked to recommend three distinct measures: (i) an injunction to prevent the transfer of disputed lands and properties; (ii) the release of funds belonging to the Claimant’s subsidiary, Benet Praha, which were frozen in connection with a domestic criminal investigation; and (iii) an order granting access to classified Czech governmental archives.

The Claimant contended that these measures were necessary and urgent to preserve its rights, including access to justice, access to property, and the ability to substantiate its claims. The Respondent countered that the requests should be denied in their entirety. It argued that the measures sought would not preserve the *status quo* but would instead create new rights for the Claimant, particularly as the Claimant acquired its investment with full knowledge of the pre-existing asset freezes and ownership disputes. Furthermore, the Respondent asserted that the requests for the injunction and the release of funds were tantamount to seeking final relief, and the request for archive access constituted an impermissible “fishing expedition” into matters of national security.

The Tribunal denied all requested measures. It first articulated the governing legal standard, emphasizing that provisional measures are extraordinary remedies intended to preserve the respective rights of the parties from irreparable prejudice. The core purpose is to protect existing rights and maintain the *status quo*, not to grant relief that is equivalent to the final award or to improve a party's pre-existing position. Applying this standard, the Tribunal found that the injunction regarding the properties and the release of the frozen funds were both requests for final relief, not preservation. It reasoned that granting these measures would fundamentally alter, rather than preserve, the circumstances that existed at the time of the investment.

Regarding the request for access to governmental archives, the Tribunal re-characterized it as an application for document production rather than a proper provisional measure for the preservation of a right. It deemed the request overly broad and unspecific, analogous to a “fishing expedition.” While acknowledging its authority to order the production of evidence under Article 43 of the ICSID Convention, the Tribunal concluded that such a request, when framed as a provisional measure, must demonstrate that the evidence itself is at risk of being lost or jeopardized, a threshold the Claimant failed to meet. Accordingly, the Tribunal rejected the Claimant's application in its entirety for failure to demonstrate that its rights would be irreparably harmed absent the requested measures.