Panama's annulment of the CK Hutchison port concessions triggered a USD 2 billion ICC arbitration, and effects far beyond it. A case for measuring dispute spillovers.

Saudi Arabia scrapped its Qualified Foreign Investor status. It kept the 49 percent cap. Background On 1 February 2026, Saudi Arabia's Capital Market Authority implemented amendments to the Rules for Foreign Investment in Securities, opening the Kingdom's capital market to all categories of foreign investors for direct investment on the Tadawul, the Saudi stock exchange. The reform eliminates the Qualified Foreign Investor status that had gated direct market access since 2015

Greenland gets its own FDI screening law just as the EU moves to tighten its own — over the same critical minerals. Background Greenland's own investment-screening regime, announced as part of its Foreign, Security, and Defense Strategy for 2024–2033, entered into force on 1 January 2026, covering eight sensitive industries including raw materials. Almost simultaneously, the European Union has been working through a review of its own FDI screening regulation that is expected

What the major law firms' 2026 arbitration forecasts agree on, and why the agreement itself is the interesting part. Background Every January, a cluster of major international law firms publish forward-looking notes on arbitration trends for the year ahead. Read individually, each is a piece of client-facing commentary. Read together, the 2026 crop — from Freshfields, Cleary Gottlieb, Baker McKenzie, Charles River Associates, A&O Shearman and Crowell & Moring, among others —

Publishers move to join a proposed class action against Google over AI training — and why that procedural step matters more than it sounds. Background On 15 January 2026, publishers Hachette Book Group and Cengage Learning filed a motion to intervene in an existing, author-led proposed class action against Google in the Northern District of California, arising out of allegations that Google misused copyrighted books to train its Gemini AI models. The publishers' filing specif

Most investor-state research studies treaties. UNCTAD's newest report studies statutes instead — and finds the same risks hiding in plainer sight. Background UNCTAD published Investment Policy Monitor, Issue No. 32, on 4 December 2025, under the title Investor–State Arbitration under Investment Laws: Risks and Policy Lessons. It builds on the earlier Investment Policy Monitor No. 29, which had tracked global trends in the drafting of national investment laws, and turns instea