As the NAFTA withdrawal rhetoric heats up, it would be prudent to determine whether your company has any claims against a NAFTA government that are covered by the NAFTA investor-state dispute resolution mechanism (ISDS), and, if so, whether your company should prepare to give formal notice of its intention to bring such claims. Given the NAFTA requirement that such notice be given at least ninety days in advance, and given the agreement’s six-month termination notice provision, your company may have only three months to give the notice in the event the US (or Canada or Mexico) issues a NAFTA termination notice. If the claims arise under contracts that provide for acceptable dispute resolution mechanisms, the company may not need to rely on the NAFTA provisions and therefore not need to worry about the expiration of the trade agreement’s ISDS provisions.
See the more comprehensive analysis of this issue we issued last February: https://www.globalarbitrationnews.com/nafta-in-play-investors-arbitration-rights-2017-02-18/
