In Espíritu Santo Holdings and L1bre Holding v. Mexico, an ICSID tribunal constituted under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is hearing a dispute concerning an investment in a digital taxi system. The claimants, a Canadian limited partnership and a U.S. limited liability company, alleged that Mexico had destroyed their investment in a digital taximeter and ride-hailing application system (“Sistema L1bre”) for Mexico City’s taxi fleet. The investment was made through their Mexican subsidiary, Lusad. They claimed that after obtaining a concession in 2016 and investing significantly, Mexico’s new city government politically motivated a suspension of the concession in 2018 and subsequently launched its own competing application, “Mi Taxi,” constituting an indirect expropriation, a breach of the minimum standard of treatment (including fair and equitable treatment), and a violation of the national treatment standard under NAFTA Articles 1110, 1105, and 1102, respectively. Mexico raised several jurisdictional objections, all of which the Tribunal dismissed. It argued that the claimants, ultimately owned by Mexican nationals, were attempting to sue their own state. The Tribunal rejected this, affirming that under NAFTA, corporate nationality is determined by the place of incorporation (Canada and the U.S.), not the nationality of the ultimate owners. It also dismissed Mexico’s arguments that a “Calvo clause” in the subsidiary’s charter constituted a waiver of treaty rights and that the investment was illegal from the outset. The Tribunal found that despite serious procedural irregularities and mutual accusations of document forgery, the evidence indicated that Mexican officials had participated in and consented to the granting of the concession, estopping the state from asserting illegality to defeat jurisdiction. The non-disputing NAFTA parties, Canada and the United States, also made submissions to the Tribunal pursuant to Article 1128 of the treaty, offering their interpretations on key provisions such as the minimum standard of treatment and expropriation. A significant procedural issue arose concerning provisional measures. The claimants requested that the Tribunal order Mexico to stay domestic criminal proceedings against their key corporate representatives and witnesses, arguing these actions were retaliatory, intended to intimidate witnesses, and would irreparably harm the procedural integrity of the arbitration. Mexico countered that the criminal investigations were legitimate, conducted in accordance with domestic law, and in some instances predated the arbitration. The Tribunal ultimately rejected the claimants' request, finding they had not met the high evidentiary threshold to demonstrate that the criminal proceedings were initiated in retaliation for the arbitration or posed a risk of irreparable harm. The issue persisted; in Procedural Order No. 7 (September 2022), the Tribunal addressed an emergency motion seeking to have a detained witness transferred to house arrest. While dismissing the motion, the Tribunal ordered Mexico to guarantee the Claimants' counsel swift and confidential access to the witness in the prison facility under specific protocols. The Tribunal later dismissed further emergency motions from the Claimants on the same matter in Procedural Order No. 8 (November 2022), where it reaffirmed its refusal to interfere with domestic criminal proceedings deemed unrelated to the arbitration. However, the Tribunal did formally invite Mexico to ensure the witnesses could provide uninhibited testimony and to consider deferring any extradition proceedings until after the final award was issued. The proceedings then entered a document production phase, which was addressed in Procedural Order No. 4 (August 2022). The Tribunal ruled on numerous requests from both parties detailed in their Redfern Schedules. A central issue was the Claimants' allegation that Mexico's competing application, "Mi Taxi," was created using the technology developed for their "L1bre" system. To address this, the Tribunal, balancing procedural fairness with the need for relevant evidence, ordered the simultaneous production of the source codes for both the "L1bre" and "Mi Taxi" systems, subject to a confidentiality protocol to be agreed upon by the parties. In Procedural Order No. 5, also issued in August 2022, the Tribunal formally adopted the confidentiality and exchange protocols agreed to by the parties, setting the stage for the technical review. The document production phase continued with Procedural Order No. 6 (September 2022), which resolved a dispute over the location for the physical inspection of original documents held by the Claimants. The Claimants proposed Washington D.C., arguing that one of their legal representatives, Santiago León, could not travel to Mexico due to pending criminal proceedings against him. Mexico insisted on Mexico City, citing that its unnamed document expert was unable to obtain a U.S. visa in time. The Tribunal sided with the Claimants, finding the risk of detention for their representative a sufficient justification to hold the inspection outside of Mexico. It ordered the inspection to take place at ICSID's facilities in Washington D.C. under the protocol otherwise agreed by the parties. In Procedural Order No. 9 (November 2022), the Tribunal addressed another document production dispute, in which the Claimants moved to compel Mexico to produce allegedly missing files related to the concession from various administrative units. The Tribunal ordered Mexico to confirm it had conducted a good-faith search for all responsive documents but denied the Claimants' request to reconsider a prior ruling that had excluded certain documents from an internal control body. In Procedural Order No. 10 (January 2023), the Tribunal established a protocol for the publication of case documents, allowing parties to request redactions for confidential business information and other protected material, with the Tribunal resolving any disputes over such redactions. A further procedural dispute arose late in the proceedings concerning the admission of new evidence. The claimants sought to introduce thirteen emails which they alleged proved that government officials had deliberately altered key documents in 2018. The Tribunal initially denied this request for having been submitted late without a showing of "special circumstances." However, upon the claimants' request for reconsideration, the Tribunal in Procedural Order No. 12 reversed its position. It found there was a "founded concern" that the emails were documents Mexico should have produced during the document production phase, and that the state's potential failure to do so could constitute the "special circumstances" needed for late admission. Consequently, the Tribunal admitted the emails into the record but postponed the final hearing to grant Mexico sufficient time to respond. In the same order, the Tribunal addressed the claimants' request to exclude an expert report from the record because one of its co-authors would not be available for cross-examination. The Tribunal denied the request, ruling that the cross-examination of the other co-author was sufficient for a co-authored report. The evidentiary disputes continued in early 2024. In Procedural Order No. 13, the Tribunal, expressing concern that a joint expert report on the authenticity of key signatures was insufficient, ordered the experts to prepare a supplementary report answering specific technical questions on graphoscopy and documentoscopy to aid the Tribunal's determination. Following a Hearing on Jurisdiction and Merits in April 2024, another evidentiary issue arose. In Procedural Order No. 15, the Tribunal addressed Mexico's request to admit 53 new documents—certificates related to the "Semovi file" which was central to allegations of document manipulation. Mexico argued the certificates were part of the original file and were removed by the Claimants, while the Claimants contended the certificates were never part of the file produced by Mexico. The Tribunal, finding that the documents were relevant to the highly-debated issue of the authenticity of evidence and that denying their admission would be more prejudicial than admitting them, granted Mexico's request. The Tribunal scheduled a Closing Hearing for October 2024, where the parties will address the new documents and a list of questions from the Tribunal on the merits of the case. In August 2024, the Tribunal issued Procedural Order No. 16, which resolved disputes between the parties regarding corrections to the transcripts of the April 2024 hearing. The Closing Hearing was held on October 2-3, 2024. Subsequently, in Procedural Order No. 17 (November 2024), the Tribunal resolved disputes concerning corrections to the transcripts of the closing hearing, finalizing the record for deliberation. The case remains pending.