Trandafir Writing Competition
2011-2012 Competition Winner
Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems is pleased to announce the winner of the 2011-2012 Trandafir Intnernational Business Writing Competition. Once again we received numerous exceptional submissions from law students across the United States and overseas.
The TLCP Board and our Faculty Advisor, Professor Jonathan C. Carlson, would like to congratulate Mr. Benjamin Falber for winning this year’s competition. In addition to being a recipient of the $2000 prize, Mr. Falber's winning article, A Unique Expropriation Framework for a Unique Category of Investment: The Rights of Foreign Investors in Public-Private Partnerships, will be published in Volume 22.
Mr. Falber is a recent graduate of Brooklyn Law School. He has a strong academic and professional interest in project finance, land use, and environmental law. He received his bachelor's degree, cum laude, from Binghamton University's Harpur College of Arts and Sciences in environmental studies. His interest in legal studies began as an undergraduate student and has blossomed into a deep curiosity about how the law regulates the development of our built environment.
Mr. Falber's Note examines how investment tribunals have resolved expropriation disputes that arose out of failed Public Private Partnerships (PPPs). The cases examined in his Note all concern expropriation of very similar investments and analyze expropriation clauses that are virtually if not identical. However, the analyses of these cases all seem to take a different path, and lack a uniform analytical structure. His Note establishes a framework of what exactly indirect expropriation means for this category of investment and provides risk management strategies for foreign investors and host states operating in PPPs.