Egypt to allow arbitration on PPP disputes - Reuters
By Patrick Werr
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt on Tuesday amended its rules for public private partnerships (PPP) to allow disputes to be resolved through arbitration rather than through Egyptian courts, a Finance Ministry official said.
The move is part of a series of measures to make the PPPs more attractive to investors, said Atter Hannoura, director of the ministry's PPP Central Unit.
Egypt has been working for years to develop PPPs. Economists say they could be an important vehicle to channel some of the billions of dollars Cairo is seeking from foreign donors to help it fill a balance of payment gap widened by a year of political turmoil.
The government's Supreme PPP Committee, headed by Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzouri, approved a request submitted by the Finance Ministry on Tuesday to change the procedures.
"This is the first time to introduce in this committee the request from the PPP unit in the Finance Ministry that arbitration be the dispute resolution mechanism," Hannoura said.
Under the new rule, arbitrations would be carried out at the Cairo International Arbitration Centre and be based on the regulations and procedures of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), he said.
Each party to a dispute would select one arbitrator and both would have to agree on a third; arbitrators could be Egyptians or foreigners.
Foreign investors tend to look for neutral, third-party arbitrators because PPP disputes usually pit investors against governments, said a PPP specialist based outside of Egypt. Continued...