Wrongful refusal to enforce an award and liability before the ECtHR (BTS v. Slovakia) | Cuadernos de Derecho Transaccional

Inés Vázquez, Inés Puig-Samper, and Víctor Javier Lana analyse the case of BTS vs. Slovakia, in which the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) found the State in violation for refusing to enforce an arbitral award, thereby breaching BTS’s right to property.

In their article, they examine the dispute between BTS and Slovakia, which arose following the termination of a sales contract after the privatisation of Bratislava Airport. Although BTS obtained a favourable arbitral award in 2012, the Slovak courts refused to enforce it, citing the invalidity of the arbitration agreement and its incompatibility with public policy. BTS brought the case before the European Court of Human Rights, which concluded that Slovakia had violated Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights by unlawfully interfering with BTS’s right to property.

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