Thai Court revokes arbitrator’s ruling on Hopewell’s ฿24Bn compensation

[snoop1130]

 

Thailand’s Central Administrative Court has revoked a ruling by an arbitration tribunal, ordering the Ministry of Transport and State Railways of Thailand (SRT) to pay Hopewell Thailand Company 24 billion baht plus interest for breach of contract for the cancellation of the controversial Hopewell road and rail project back in 1998.

 

The Central Administrative Court’s decision was delivered on Monday, ending the current phase of the long-running legal battle through the arbitration and judicial processes between Hopewell, the Transport Ministry and the SRT.

 

Hopewell Thailand now has the right to appeal the decision to the Supreme Administrative Court.

 

Full story: Thai PBS 2023-09-19

 

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[retarius]

Hahahaha. What a larf, eh? For doing no work? I'm very happy with this sensible decision and have a strong feeling that the good sense will be echoed by the appeals court. I would have thought that this was force majeure coming right after the 1997 financial meltdown in Asia.

[MartinBangkok]

50 minutes ago, retarius said:

Hahahaha. What a larf, eh? For doing no work? I'm very happy with this sensible decision and have a strong feeling that the good sense will be echoed by the appeals court. I would have thought that this was force majeure coming right after the 1997 financial meltdown in Asia.

What?? I wish you the best of luck if you ever try to do business in Thailand as a foreigner. Have you read the Thai minister's comment about the verdict? "Congratulations all Thais" 

What a country!

[Srikcir]

Generally, unless there's proven fraud in mandatory arbitration, the complainant should have no standing to bring the dispute to court. That prevents the financial risk of nationalism. This is fundamental to free trade agreements between foreign and domestic interests to keep national power at bay from abuse of judicial system, particularly where a judicial system and/or government might be corrupt.

Case in point the Thailand Chatree gold mine operation which is owed according to the company as of September 2023 over 25 billion baht in compensation due to the Prayut NCPO military junta's shutdown of the operation in 2017, overriding the arbitration process.

However, I think in the Hopewell case the agreement did (weirdly) specifically allow a judicial appeal to any arbitration decision. In the interim the Thai government just issued operating licenses for another ten years.

There have been other Thailand breaches of FTA's such as (I recall) over the import of Phillip Morris cigarettes from The Philippines wherein the World Trade Organization ruled in favor of Phillip Morris but Thailand refused WTO's ruling. This occurred also during PM Prayut's regime.

[thailand49]

Let me try to get this right? ????

contract was signed if a dispute occurred it goes to Arbitration 

( Language might include case can go to the courts )

The work was started went on for two years but then it was suspended I didn't read any information as to why. 

I would think based on information provided the contract was breached why a filing under the old or new ruling didn't happen in a timely manner? 

Unless more information is provided the Arbitration body made the only decision it could

The courts stepping in now after all these years is suspicious since Hopewell is HongKong (AKA China).  Then it indicates Hopewell has a period to appeal the award which in this case the time period would be insane to do so. Personally I would bring back the same group who couldn't file on time in the first place. It smells top to bottom reason things are unfinished.

 

[zzaa09]

On 9/19/2023 at 5:43 AM, MartinBangkok said:

What?? I wish you the best of luck if you ever try to do business in Thailand as a foreigner. Have you read the Thai minister's comment about the verdict? "Congratulations all Thais" 

What a country!

Might be a lesson for private contractors who wish to pursue joint business with the always shady Thai government circles. Reminding that this is not the first instance of such shenanigans and betrayal by Thai govt and their business dealings/projects with foreign or domestic contractor types. 

 

Why, in their right minds, would anyone want to conduct business [in this gargantuan manner] with the ever present uncertainty and unethical character that exist with government - especially this one.

[ExpatOilWorker]

58 minutes ago, thailand49 said:

Let me try to get this right? ????

contract was signed if a dispute occurred it goes to Arbitration 

( Language might include case can go to the courts )

The work was started went on for two years but then it was suspended I didn't read any information as to why. 

I would think based on information provided the contract was breached why a filing under the old or new ruling didn't happen in a timely manner? 

Unless more information is provided the Arbitration body made the only decision it could

The courts stepping in now after all these years is suspicious since Hopewell is HongKong (AKA China).  Then it indicates Hopewell has a period to appeal the award which in this case the time period would be insane to do so. Personally I would bring back the same group who couldn't file on time in the first place. It smells top to bottom reason things are unfinished.

 

There were also the 2 billion baht firetruck dispute between BMA and an Austrian company.

As for Hopewell,  there we fault on both sides. The state railway were slow at handing over land for construction but the '97 Asian crises also left Hopewell in no hurry to invest further in Thailand. 

[ExpatOilWorker]

12 minutes ago, zzaa09 said:

Might be a lesson for private contractors who wish to pursue joint business with the always shady Thai government circles. Reminding that this is not the first instance of such shenanigans and betrayal by Thai govt and their business dealings/projects with foreign or domestic contractor types. 

 

Why, in their right minds, would anyone want to conduct business [in this gargantuan manner] with the ever present uncertainty and unethical character that exist with government - especially this one.

To be fair, the BTS/MRT are amazing infrastructure projects with high quality foreign made rolling stock. 

[impulse]

13 minutes ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

To be fair, the BTS/MRT are amazing infrastructure projects with high quality foreign made rolling stock. 

Catch me up...  Did that high quality foreign made rolling stock ever actually get paid for?

 

[ExpatOilWorker]

23 minutes ago, impulse said:

Catch me up...  Did that high quality foreign made rolling stock ever actually get paid for?

 

Sure, but probably with money ???? they scammed out of Chevron. 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-thailand-chevron-idUSKBN26N1V5

[matchar]

1 hour ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

Sure, but probably with money ???? they scammed out of Chevron. 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-thailand-chevron-idUSKBN26N1V5

And that's why electricity has been so expensive. The dispute meant domestic gas production massively declined and Thailand had to rely on more imported gas.

 

Massive Prayut own goal and consumers are paying the price.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

2 hours ago, zzaa09 said:

 

Why, in their right minds, would anyone want to conduct business [in this gargantuan manner] with the ever present uncertainty and unethical character that exist with government - especially this one.

 

Probably because usually the contracted party is some part of the big, domestic Thai-Chinese oligarchy club, so they're all playing on the same team in some way or another.

 

But in this case, the contracted party was a foreign entity... not part of the local club for some reason. And as we all know, when it comes to money, Thailand only wants it coming in.... and rarely if ever going out, if they have any say about it.