Oil and gas company Rockhopper Exploration remains hopeful about the resolution of its arbitration against Italy over the Ombrina Mare field in the Adriatic Sea, as Italy’s intra-EU jurisdictional challenge got rejected once again by the tribunal in charge of the arbitration.
Rockhopper has been in arbitration over the fieldsince 2017. In February 2016, Italy decidednot to awardthe company a production concession covering the Ombrina Mare field due to there-introduction of the banon exploration and production activity within 12 nautical miles off the coast of Italy. Ombrina Mare is located within the 12-mile limit.
Furthermore, Rockhopper was given a boost in late June 2019 after an international tribunalrejected Italy’s requestfor the suspension of the arbitration and Italy’s related intra-EU jurisdictional objections over the Ombrina Mare field.
In its half-year report on 30 September 2021,the company advised that Italyhad made a request, and the tribunal agreed, to admit a recent European Court of Justice judgment related to intra-EU Energy Charter Treaty disputes, and to reconsider its 2019 decision to rejectItaly’sintra-EU jurisdictional challenge in the arbitration. At the time, the tribunal requested Rockhopper’s legal advisers to respond by 6 October 2021.
In the most recent update on its international arbitration against theRepublic of Italy, Rockhopper informed that the tribunal had rejectedItaly’srequest.
Rockhopper’s views regarding the outcome of the arbitration process have not changed and it still continues to believe it has strong prospects of recovering very significant monetary damages – on the basis of lost profits – as a result of theRepublic of Italy’sbreaches of the Energy Charter Treaty.
In addition, all of Rockhopper’s costs associated with the arbitration to date have been funded on a non-recourse (no win – no fee) basis from a specialist arbitration funder.
The Ombrina Mare is an /development project located off the Abruzzo, a region in Italy, in the shallow waters of the Central Adriatic.
