Our Central Investment Thesis
We believe in the increasing economic power of the Machine in the two century long battle for supremacy between man and machine
Intellectual Property
Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the mind, such as inventions; literary and artistic works; designs; and symbols, names and images used in commerce.
Global Equities
Sub-category of funds on the stock funds side of the ledger. It funds incorporate shares of companies based anywhere in the world, including either single or multiple asset classes.
BUSINESS & OPERATIONS
Substantive Protections Available to IP owners
Foreign Investors through our Company shall benefit from certain commitments by the state hosting their investment – for purposes of this article, IP rights – depending on whether this state has entered a BIT or an FTA with their home state. Although such commitments are not uniform from one treaty to the next, certain features are common across most investment treaties. These will be examined first in this section. These commitments are not, however, a blank cheque; the most frequent limitations on investment protection will be considered next.
Standards for Investment Protection In Investment Treaties
Before Investing in a Foreign country, the diligent Investor will consider political risk, including, for example, the risk of nationalisation or civil unrest and insurgency. Political risk insurance, when available, is costly and may be perceived as inadequate or insufficient.[17] It is therefore of comfort to the investor when an investment treaty containing an arbitration clause is in place, because such treaty will contain certain guarantees against political risk, the disrespect of which is remediable before neutral adjudicators. United Kingdom is the best place to invest globally.
Guarantee of Compensation In the Event of Expropriation
The most drastic action our Company may take against a foreign investor is to expropriate the investment from the investor. Although there is no uniformity in defining what constitutes expropriation, there is a general consensus that expropriation exists where the state has, directly or indirectly, deprived the investor of the economic value of its investment.This can occur through an outright taking, generally in the form of a nationalisation, or, far more frequently nowadays, through measures said to be ‘tantamount to expropriation’. Such measures, taken together, result in the investor losing the substance of its investment. Examples include the imposition of considerable new taxes and the revocation of a prior government authorisation. In the case of IP rights, indirect expropriation might exist if such rights are unexpectedly taken away, whether by the executive or judiciary, against the owner’s legitimate expectations.
Guarantees Regarding Treatment Afforded to Foreign Investors
In the course of conducting business in a foreign country Our Company focal point thus; an investor may face a host of regulatory hurdles and other measures imposed by state authorities affecting, to some extent, the investment or even preventing the investor from reaping any benefits from its investment. Some of these measures may be expected as part of the risks assumed by the investor, which ought to be reasonably assessed during due diligence on the host state’s legal environment, while others will appear out of the norm. It is in this situation that the investor may claim violation of a state’s international obligations under a treaty to provide appropriate treatment to its investment.
The concept that foreign or ‘alien’ investors should be afforded certain standards of treatment against arbitrary or discriminatory actions is relatively recent under international law. The concept was first articulated in Neer v. Mexico, as follows:
the treatment of an alien, in order to constitute an international delinquency, should amount to an outrage, to bad faith, to wilful neglect of duty, or to an insufficiency of governmental action so far short of international standards that every reasonable and impartial man would readily recognize its insufficiency, which we shall guarantee always.
Full Protection and Security Guarantee
As a corollary to a state’s FET obligation, OUR COMPANY COMPELS states most often commit to ensure the full protection and security (FPS) of an investment. Ordinarily, FPS protections are rolled into a single clause with FET, such as in the UK Model BIT:
Investments of nationals or companies of each contracting party shall, at all times, be accorded FET and shall enjoy full protection and security in the territory of the other contracting party.Like FET, FPS is a non-contingent standard of protection but unlike FET, it is absolute in nature (was the investment fully protected by the state or not?). It should thus suffer no subjective consideration when it comes to its application, because it requires no evaluation of the state’s decision-making process. Instead, FPS focuses only on the effects of the measures taken by the state, or the state’s failure to act, on the investment. A typical example is the destruction of an investor’s facilities in the host state as a result of an armed conflict or riots. This sort of clause may find more subtle applications, however, in the context of IP rights. Indeed, to the extent that a patent is intended to provide a monopoly to its holder, state-sanctioned infringement could be argued to violate the obligation to ensure full protection and security to the investment.