Global trade wars are looming over the establishment of local content requirements in national law. Nearly two months after Canada lost a case at the World Trade Organization, the US has approached the WTO to challenge the local content requirements in India’s solar power program. This growing trend could have serious implications for India’s new FDI policy on retail trade and other programs intended to encourage domestic manufacturing and job creation.

On 19 December 2012, a WTO panel backed complaints from Japan and the European Union that the local content requirements of Ontario’s Feed-in-tariff (FIT) program for the renewable energy sector violate WTO rules because…

Thousands of guar farmers in India are today caught in a vicious cycle fuelled by the spectacular rise in the prices of guar seed and guar gum products during the six months period between October 2011 and March 2012.  The prices of guar seed (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba) and guar gum (extracted from guar seed) rose over 900 percent in the futures markets during this period largely due to speculative buying (coupled with market manipulation through circular trading, cross deals and other market abusive practices) by big traders and non-commercial players. The rally in the prices came to an end when Forward Markets Commission (FMC), the…

As India grapples with the Vodafone and 2G fallout, the Bilateral Investment Treaties it signed a few years ago are coming back to haunt it. On April 17, British telecom giant Vodafone issued a notice of dispute to the Indian government, as a first step towards launching investment arbitration proceedings under the India-Netherlands Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) signed in 1995.

The telecom company filed the notice through its Dutch subsidiary, Vodafone International Holdings BV, asking the Indian government to abandon or suitably amend the retrospective aspects of the proposed tax legislation under Finance Bill 2012 which allows tax authorities to reopen cases as far back as…

On 28^th February, Russian conglomerate Sistema JSFC sent a formal notice to Republic of India threatening international arbitration proceedings under the Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) if the government fails to settle the dispute related to revocation of its 21 telecom licences in an amicable way within six months.

“Sistema believes that the cancellation of SSTL’s licences following Sistema’s investment of billions of dollars into the Indian cellular sector is contrary to India’s obligations under the BIT, including obligations to provide investments with full protection and security and obligations not to expropriate investments. If the dispute is not amicably resolved by August 28, 2012, Sistema reserves the…

Since 2007, India and the European Union have been negotiating a comprehensive free trade agreement — officially known as Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA) — covering trade in goods and services besides rules pertaining to cross-border investments, competition policy, government procurement and state aid.

This legally binding agreement would cover almost a fifth of the world population and, therefore, it impact and implications (both positive and negative) would be significant. Several difficult issues need to be resolved if India is not to be short-changed in the Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement with the EU.  Despite 14 rounds of formal negotiations, the finalisation of the BTIA has been…