British oil and gas miner Rockhopper Explorations last month won £210 million plus interest (about A$360 million) in compensation over Italy’s 2015 ban on oil and gas drilling within its territorial seas.
It’s a portent of claims Australia may face from British companies invested in Australia’s fossil-fuel industries if the United Kingdom gets its way and joins the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), to which Australia is a signatory.
Rockhopper had invested £33 million in plans to drill for oil off Italy’s east coast in the Adriatic Sea. The compensation covers all profits it would have made. Its claim was enabled by a so-called investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) clause in the Energy Charter Treaty signed by Italy and Britain in the 1990s.
