When Georgias’s voters went to the polls in October, billionaire Boris Ivanishvili was effectively elected as that nation’s next prime minister. Just three weeks earlier, he had sued his country for $186 million.
In September, Ivanishvili, who had received French citizenship in 2010, filed an arbitration with the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes under the Franco-Georgian investment treaty, targeting the regime of President Mikheil Saakashvili. The notice of disputewritten by David Herlihy, Karyl Nairn, and Gregory Craig of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flomaccuses Saakashvili’s government of a shamelessly inventive campaign of political intimidation.
