Law in Practice — ICSID Rejects Chinese Investor's Annulment Bid Against South Korea
This week in Law
ICSID annulment committee rejects investor's challenge, closes six-year Korea dispute
An ICSID ad hoc committee has rejected Chinese investor Fengzhen Min's challenge to the May 2024 tribunal award that dismissed his investment treaty claim against South Korea, closing a six-year, roughly USD 190 million dispute arising from a defaulted real-estate loan and the enforcement of pledged shares. The committee upheld the tribunal's finding that Min's underlying investment was unlawful and therefore fell outside the Korea-China BIT's protection — reaffirming how narrowly "investment" is construed once illegality is established. Min was ordered to cover roughly 1.51 billion won in Korea's legal costs plus USD 426,751 in annulment expenses. For counsel advising on ISDS exposure or annulment strategy, the award is a reminder that a legality-of-investment defense remains a first line of defense, and that committees are not inclined to second-guess a tribunal's factual findings on it.
Read more →For further reading
The Transformation of International Investment Law and Its Principles
The Korea annulment decision turned on how narrowly a protected "investment" is defined once illegality enters the picture — exactly the FET and indirect-expropriation thresholds this book maps, tracing how tribunals and treaty drafters have converged on today's standards.
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Third-Party Funding in International Investment Law
Six-year disputes like the Korea case are exactly the kind of drawn-out claim third-party funders now underwrite at scale. For counsel weighing funding arrangements or advising funded claimants, this is the current comparative read on regulation and the conflicts-of-interest debate moving through UNCITRAL.
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