Roundtables on Infrastructure Finance & Development - 2nd General Counsels' Rountable, February 10-11, 2006

To build on the cumulative progress of the 1st General Counsels' Roundtable, the 2nd General Counsels' Roundtable was held on February 10 and 11, 2006 at Stanford University, again hosted by the Collaboratory for Research on Global Projects (CRGP). The Roundtable was co-chaired by Professor Thomas C. Heller of the Stanford Law School and Barry Metzger, a senior partner of Baker & McKenzie international law firm. Participating in the Roundtable discussions were senior lawyers and business executives from a cross-section of project sponsors, investment funds, engineering firms, multilateral financial institutions, export credit agencies and private law firms and academics from law, engineering, sociology, economics and political science disciplines.

The primary intellectual objective of the Roundtable was to bring together senior-level, forward-thinking experts to critically analyze the experience of legal failures - default and renegotiation - between foreign investors, host governments and other involved parties, when infrastructure projects have become distressed, and to draw lessons from such experience to inform future public policy and project design.

Participation in the Roundtable was by invitation only, with carefully selected representation from relevant sectors of the industry, and from multiple geographic regions. Numbers were limited to a small and select few to encourage real discussion and debate, with an emphasis on two central questions:

How and why have infrastructure contracts, concessions and privatization arrangements failed or been renegotiated?

How might the models, strategies and approaches that we use in structuring investments in foreign infrastructure be enhanced?

On this page we present some images from the roundtable, a set of papers and presentations that were used as the basis for discussion, as well as an Executive Summary of the proceedings of the roundtable. A detailed version of the proceedings is available to all CRGP members, and is available by contacting Ryan J. Orr.

Group Photo with Hoover Tower in the Background

Pin the Fail on the Project Donkey

The Roundtable in Progress

Participants at the Roundtable having a discussion at one of the breaks

'Invitation to the 2nd General Counsels' Roundtable'

.PDF file (231 KB)

'Agenda for the 2nd General Counsels' Roundtable'

.PDF file (156 KB)

'Bibliography of Published Works by Roundtable Participants' a list of publications on display at the Roundtable

.PDF file (122 KB)

'Investment in Foreign Infrastructure: The Legacy and Lessons of Legal-Contractual Failure' a Background paper by Ryan J. Orr

.PDF file (1.9 MB)

'Does Regulation and Institutional Design Matter for Infrastructure Sector Performance?' an article co-authored by J.Luis Guasch

.PDF file (324 KB)

'How Profitable are Infrastructure Concessions in Latin America? Empirical Evidence and Regulatory Implications' an article co-authored by J.Luis Guasch

.PDF file (524 KB)

'Granting and Renegotiating Infrastructure Concessions in Latin America' a book by J.Luis Guasch

.PDF file (4.1 MB)

'Governance in Public-Private Partnerships for Infrastructure Development' a report by the U.N. Economic Commission for Europe

.PDF file (461 KB)

'The Obsolescing Bargain Redux? Foreign Investment in the Electric Power Sector in Developing Countries' A report by Erik Woodhouse

Please contact the author to request the report

'Double Dipping in Arbitration Awards? An Economist Questions Damages Awarded to Karaha Bodas Company in Indonesia' a journal article by Louis T. Wells Jr., published in Arbitration International: The Journal of the London Court of International Arbitration, Vol. 19, No. 4, 2003, pp. 471-481.

.pdf File (60 KB)

'Regulating London Underground' A report by Chris Bolt, the PPP Arbiter for the London Underground

.pdf File (451 KB)

'Renegotiating Power Projects in Developing Countries' a presentation by Erik Woodhouse

.PDF file (674 KB)

'Jurisprudence of International Arbitration of Failed Projects' a presentation by Tom Heller and Aaron Nathan

.PDF file (90 KB)

'Trends in Foreign Direct Investment & Private Participation in Infrastructure' a presentation by Eileen Aghnami and Barry Metzger

.PDF file (636 KB)

'The Governance Model: The Private-Public Partnership Embodiment' a presentation by Art Smith

.PDF file (1.87 MB)

'Why is Renegotiation of PPI Arrangements Attracting so much Attention? Lessons from over 1000 concessions in Latin America' a presentation by J.Luis Guasch

.PDF file (1.87 MB)

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February 15, 2006

2nd General Counsels' Rountable, February 10-11, 2006