INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE
5 February 1970
(NEW APPLICATION 1962)
(BELGIUM v. SPAIN)
SECOND PHASE
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8. The Barcelona Traction, Light and Power Company, Limited, is a holding company incorporated in 1911 in Toronto (Canada), where it has its head office. For the purpose of creating and developing an electric power production and distribution system in Catalonia (Spain), it formed a number of operating, financing and concession-holding subsidiary companies. Three of these companies, whose shares it owned wholly or almost wholly, were incorporated under Canadian law and had their registered offices in Canada (Ebro Irrigation and Power Company, Limited, Catalonian Land Company, Limited and International Utilities Finance Corporation, Limited); the others were incorporated under Spanish law and had their registered offices in Spain. At the time of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War the group, through its operating subsidiaries, supplied the major part of Catalonia's electricity requirements.
9. According to the Belgian Government, some years after the First World War Barcelona Traction's share capital came to be very largely held by Belgian nationals-natural or juristic persons-and a very high percentage of the shares has since then continuously belonged to Belgian nationals, particularly the Société Internationale d'Energie Hydro Electrique (Sidro), whose principal shareholder, the Société Financière de Transports et d'Entreprises Industrielles (Sofina), is itself a company in which Belgian interests are preponderant. The fact that large blocks of shares were for certain periods transferred to American nominees, to
8protect these securities in the event of invasion of Belgian territory during the Second World War, is not, according to the Belgian contention, of any relevance in this connection, as it was Belgian nationals, particularly Sidro, who continued to be the real owners. For a time the shares were vested in a trustee, but the Belgian Government maintains that the trust terminated in 1946. The Spanish Government contends, on the contrary, that the Belgian nationality of the shareholders is not proven and that the trustee or the nominees must be regarded as the true shareholders in the case of the shares concerned.
10. Barcelona Traction issued several series of bonds, some in pesetas but principally in sterling. The issues were secured by trust deeds, with the National Trust Company, Limited, of Toronto as trustee of the sterling bonds, the security consisting essentially of a charge on bonds and shares of Ebro and other subsidiaries and of a mortgage executed by Ebro in favour of National Trust. The sterling bonds were serviced out of transfers to Barcelona Traction effected by the subsidiary companies operating in Spain.
11. In 1936 the servicing of the Barcelona Traction bonds was suspended an account of the Spanish civil war. In 1940 payment of interest on the peseta bonds was resumed with the authorization of the Spanish exchange control authorities (required because the debt was owed by a foreign company), but authorization for the transfer of the foreign currency necessary for the servicing of the sterling bonds was refused and those interest payments were never resumed.
12. In 1945 Barcelona Traction proposed a plan of compromise which provided for the reimbursement of the sterling debt. When the Spanish authorities refused to authorize the transfer of the necessary foreign currency, this plan was twice modified. In its final form, the plan provided, inter alia, for an advance redemption by Ebro of Barcelona Traction peseta bonds, for which authorization was likewise required. Such authorization was refused by the Spanish authorities. Later, when the Belgian Government complained of the refusals to authorize foreign currency transfers, without which the debts on the bonds could not be honoured, the Spanish Government stated that the transfers could not be authorized unless it was shown that the foreign currency was to be used to repay debts arising from the genuine importation of foreign capital into Spain, and that this had not been established.
13. On 9 February 1948 three Spanish holders of recently acquired Barcelona Traction sterling bonds petitioned the court of Reus (Province of Tarragona) for a declaration adjudging the company bankrupt, an account of failure to pay the interest on the bonds. The petition was admitted by an order of 10 February 1948 and a judgment declaring the company bankrupt was given on 12 February. This judgment included provisions appointing a commissioner in bankruptcy and an interim
9receiver and ordering the seizure of the assets of Barcelona Traction, Ebro and Compania Barcelonesa de Electricidad, another subsidiary company.
14. The shares of Ebro and Barcelonesa had been deposited by Barcelona Traction and Ebro with the National Trust company of Toronto as security for their bond issues. All the Ebro and the Barcelonesa ordinary shares were held outside Spain, and the possession taken of them was characterized as "mediate and constructive civil possession", that is to say was not accompanied by physical possession. Pursuant to the bankruptcy judgment the commissioner in bankruptcy at once dismissed the principal management personnel of the two companies and during the ensuing weeks the Interim receiver appointed Spanish directors and declared that the companies were thus "normalized". Shortly after the bankruptcy judgment the petitioners brought about the extension of the taking of possession and related measures to the other subsidiary companies.
15. Proceedings in Spain to contest the bankruptcy judgment and the related decisions were instituted by Barcelona Traction, National Trust, the subsidiary companies and their directors or management personnel. However, Barcelona Traction, which had not received a judicial notice of the bankruptcy proceedings, and was not represented before the Reus court in February, took no proceedings in the Courts until 18 June 1948. In particular it did not enter a plea of Opposition against the bankruptcy judgment within the time-limit of eight days from the date of publication of the judgment laid down in Spanish legislation. On the grounds that the notification and publication did not comply with the relevant legal requirements, the Belgian Government contends that the eight-day time-limit had never begun to run.
16. Motions contesting the jurisdiction of the Reus court and of the Spanish Courts as a whole, in particular by certain bondholders, had a suspensive effect on the actions for redress; a decision on the question of jurisdiction was in turn delayed by lengthy proceedings brought by the Genora company, a creditor of Barcelona Traction, disputing Barcelona Traction's right to be a party to the proceedings on the jurisdictional issue. One of the motions contesting jurisdiction was not finally dismissed by the Barcelona Court of appeal until 1963, after the Belgian Application had been filed with the International Court of Justice.
17. In June 1949, on an application by the Namel company, with the Intervention of the Genora company, the Barcelona tourt of appeal gave a judgment making it possible for the meeting of creditors to be convened for the election of the trustees in bankruptcy, by excluding the necessary procedure from the suspensive effect of the motion contesting jurisdiction. Trustees were then elected, and procured decisions that new shares of the subsidiary companies should be created, cancelling the shares located outside Spain (December 1949), and that the head Offices of Ebro and Catalonian Land should henceforth be at Barcelona and not
10Toronto. Finally in August 1951 the trustees obtained Court authorization to sell "the totality of the shares, with all the rights attaching to them, representing the corporate capital" of the subsidiary companies, in the form of the newly created share certificates. The sale took place by public auction on 4 January 1952 on the basis of a set of General Conditions and became effective on 17 June 1952. The purchaser was a newly formed company, Fuerzas Electricas de Cataluna, S.A. (Fecsa), which thereupon acquired complete control of the undertaking in Spain.
18. Proceedings before the Court of Reus, various courts of Barcelona and the Spanish Supreme Court, to contest the sale and the operations which preceded or followed it, were taken by, among others, Barcelona Traction, National Trust and the Belgian company Sidro as a shareholder in Barcelona Traction, but without success. According to the Spanish Government, up to the filing of the Belgian Application, 2,736 orders had been made in the case and 494 judgments given by lower and 37 by higher Courts. For the purposes of this Judgment it is not necessary to go into these orders and judgments.
19. After the bankruptcy declaration, representations were made to the Spanish Government by the British, Canadian, United States and Belgian Governments.
20. The British Government made representations to the Spanish Government on 23 February 1948 concerning the bankruptcy of Barcelona Traction and the seizure of its assets as well as those of Ebro and Barcelonesa, stating its interest in the situation of the bondholders resident in the United Kingdom. It subsequently supported the representations made by the Canadian Government.
21. The Canadian Government made representations to the Spanish Government in a series of diplomatic notes, the first being dated 27 March 1948 and the last 21 April 1952; in addition, approaches were made on a less official level in July 1954 and March 1955. The Canadian Government first complained of the denials of justice said to have been committed in Spain towards Barcelona Traction, Ebro and National Trust, but it subsequently based its complaints more particularly on conduct towards the Ebro company said to be in breach of certain treaty provisions applicable between Spain and Canada. The Spanish Government did not respond to a Canadian proposal for the submission of the dispute to arbitration and the Canadian Government subsequently confined itself, until the time when its interposition entirely ceased, to endeavouring to promote a settlement by agreement between the private groups concerned.
22. The United States Government made representations to the Spanish Government on behalf of Barcelona Traction in a note of 22 July 1949, in support of a note submitted by the Canadian Government the previous day. It subsequently continued its interposition through the diplomatic channel and by other means. Since references were made by the United States Government in these representations to the presence of
11American interests in Barcelona Traction, the Spanish Government draws the conclusion that, in the light of the customary practice of the United States Government to protect only substantial American Investments abroad, the existence must be presumed of such large American interests as to rule out a preponderance of Belgian interests. The Belgian Government considers that the United States Government was motivated by a more general concern to secure equitable treatment of foreign Investments in Spain, and in this context cites, inter alia, a note of 5 June 1967 from the United States Government.
23. The Spanish Government having stated in a note of 26 September 1949 that Ebro had not furnished proof as to the origin and genuineness of the bond debts, which justified the refusal of foreign currency transfers, the Belgian and Canadian Governments considered proposing to the Spanish Government the establishment of a tripartite committee to study the question. Before this proposal was made, the Spanish Government suggested in March 1950 the creation of a committee on which, in addition to Spain, only Canada and the United Kingdom would be represented. This proposal was accepted by the United Kingdom and Canadian Governments. The work of the committee led to a joint Statement of 11 June 1951 by the three Governments to the effect, inter alia, that the attitude of the Spanish administration in not authorizing the transfers of foreign currency was fully justified. The Belgian Government protested against the fact that it had not been invited to nominate an expert to take part in the enquiry, and reserved its rights; in the proceedings before the Court it contended that the joint statement of 1951, which was based on the work of the committee, could not be set up against it, being res inter alios acta.
24. The Belgian Government made representations to the Spanish Government on the same day as the Canadian Government, in a note of 27 March 1948. It continued its diplomatic intervention until the rejection by the Spanish Government of a Belgian proposal for submission to arbitration (end of 1951). After the admission of Spain to membership in the United Nations (1955), which, as found by the Court in 1964, rendered operative again the clause of compulsory jurisdiction contained in the 1927 Hispano-Belgian Treaty of Conciliation, Judicial Settlement and Arbitration, the Belgian Government attempted further representations. After the rejection of a proposal for a special agreement, it decided to refer the dispute unilaterally to this Court.
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55. The Court will now examine other grounds on which it is conceivable that the submission by the Belgian Government of a claim on behalf of shareholders in Barcelona Traction may be justified.
56. For the same reasons as before, the Court must here refer to municipal law. Forms of incorporation and their legal personality have
39sometimes not been employed for the sole purposes they were originally intended to serve ; sometimes the corporate entity has been unable to protect the rights of those who entrusted their financial resources to it; thus inevitably there have arisen dangers of abuse, as in the case of many other institutions of law. Here, then, as elsewhere, the law, confronted with economic realities, has had to provide protective measures and remedies in the interests of those within the corporate entity as well as of those outside who have dealings with it : the law has recognized that the independent existence of the legal entity cannot be treated as an absolute. It is in this context that the process of "lifting the corporate veil" or "disregarding the legal entity" has been found justified and equitable in certain circumstances or for certain purposes. The wealth of practice already accumulated on the subject in municipal law indicates that the veil is lifted, for instance, to prevent the misuse of the privileges of legal personality, as in certain cases of fraud or malfeasance, to protect third persons such as a creditor or purchaser, or to prevent the evasion of legal requirements or of obligations.
57. Hence the lifting of the veil is more frequently employed from without, in the interest of those dealing with the corporate entity. However, it has also been operated from within, in the interest of-among others-the shareholders, but only in exceptional circumstances.
58. In accordance with the principle expounded above, the process of lifting the veil, being an exceptional one admitted by municipal law in respect of an institution of its own making, is equally admissible to play a similar role in international law. It follows that on the international plane also there may in principle be special circumstances which justify the lifting of the veil in the interest of shareholders.
59. Before proceeding, however, to consider whether such circumstances exist in the present case, it will be advisable to refer to two specific cases involving encroachment upon the legal entity, instances of which have been cited by the Parties. These are: first, the treatment of enemy and allied property, during and after the First and Second World Wars, in peace treaties and other international instruments; secondly, the treatment of foreign property consequent upon the nationalizations carried out in recent years by many States.
60. With regard to the first, enemy-property legislation was an instrument of economic warfare, aimed at denying the enemy the advantages to be derived from the anonymity and separate personality of corporations. Hence the lifting of the veil was regarded as justified ex necessitate and was extended to all entities which were tainted with enemy character, even the nationals of the State enacting the legislation. The provisions of the peace treaties had a very specific function : to protect allied property, and to seize and pool enemy property with a view to covering reparation
40Claims. Such provisions are basically different in their rationale from those normally applicable.
61. Also distinct are the various arrangements made in respect of compensation for the nationalization of foreign property. Their rationale too, derived as it is from structural changes in a State's economy, differs from that of any normally applicable provisions. Specific agreements have been reached to meet specific situations, and the terms have varied from case to case. Far from evidencing any norm as to the classes of beneficiaries of compensation such arrangements are sui generis and provide no guide in the present case.
62. Nevertheless, during the course of the proceedings both Parties relied an international Instruments and judgments of international tribunals concerning these two specific areas. It should be clear that the developments in question have to be viewed as distinctive processes, arising out of circumstances peculiar to the respective situations. To seek to draw from them analogies or conclusions held to be valid in other fields is to ignore their specific character as lex specialis and hence to Court error.
63. The Parties have also relied on the general arbitral jurisprudence which has accumulated in the last half-century. However, in most cases the decisions cited rested upon the terms of Instruments establishing the jurisdiction of the tribunal or claims commission and determining what rights might enjoy protection; they cannot therefore give rise to generalization going beyond the special circumstances of each case. Other decisions, allowing or disallowing Claims by way of exception, are not, in view of the particular facts concerned, directly relevant to the present case.
64. The Court will now consider whether there might not be, in the present case, other special circumstances for which the general rule might not take effect. In this connection two particular situations must be studied : the case of the company having ceased to exist and the case of the company's national State lacking capacity to take action on its behalf.
65. As regards the first of these possibilities the Court observes that the Parties have put forward conflicting interpretations of the present situation of Barcelona Traction. There can, however, be no question but that Barcelona Traction has lost all its assets in Spain, and was placed in receivership in Canada, a receiver and manager having been appointed. It is common ground that from the economic viewpoint the company has been entirely paralyzed. It has been deprived of all its Spanish sources of income, and the Belgian Government has asserted that the company
41could no longer find the funds for its legal defence, so that these had to be supplied by the shareholders.
66. It cannot however, be contended that the corporate entity of the company has ceased to exist, or that it has lost its capacity to take corporate action. It was free to exercise such capacity in the Spanish Courts and did in fact do so. It has not become incapable in law of defending its own rights and the interests of the shareholders. In particular, a precarious financial situation cannot be equated with the demise of the corporate entity, which is the hypothesis under consideration: the company's status in law is alone relevant, and not its economic condition, nor even the possibility of its being "practically defunct" - a description on which argument has been based but which lacks all legal precision. Only in the event of the legal demise of the company are the shareholders deprived of the possibility of a remedy available through the company; it is only if they became deprived of all such possibility that an independent right of action for them and their government could arise.
67. In the present case, Barcelona Traction is in receivership in the country of incorporation. Far from implying the demise of the entity or of its rights, this much rather devotes that those rights are preserved for so long as no Liquidation has ensued. Though in receivership, the company continues to exist. Moreover, it is a matter of public record that the company's shares were quoted on the stock-market at a recent date.
68. The reason for the appointment in Canada not only of a receiver but also of a manager was explained as follows:
"In the Barcelona Traction case it was obvious, in view of the Spanish bankruptcy Order of 12 February 1948, that the appointment of only a receiver would be useless, as positive steps would have to be taken if any assets seized in the bankruptcy in Spain were to be recovered." (Hearing of 2 July 1969.)
In brief, a manager was appointed in Order to safeguard the company's rights; he has been in a position directly or indirectly to uphold them. Thus, even if the company is limited in its activityafter being placed in receivership, there can be no doubt that it has retained its legal capacity and that the power to exercise it is vested in the manager appointed by the Canadian Courts. The Court is thus not confronted with the first hypothesis contemplated in paragraph 64, and need not pronounce upon it.
69. The Court will now turn to the second possibility, that of the lack of capacity of the company's national State to act on its behalf. The first question which must be asked here is whether Canada - the third apex of
42the triangular relationship - is, in law, the national state of Barcelona Traction.
70. In allocating corporate entities to States for purposes of diplomatic protection, international law is based, but only to a limited extent, on an analogy with the rules governing the nationality of individuals. The traditional rule attributes the right of diplomatic protection of a corporate entity to the State under the laws of which it is incorporated and in whose territory it has its registered office. These two criteria have been confirmed by long practice and by numerous international instruments. This notwithstanding, further or different links are at times said to be required in order that a right of diplomatic protection should exist. Indeed, it has been the practice of some States to give a company incorporated under their law diplomatic protection solely when it has its seat (siège social) or management or centre of control in their territory, or when a majority or a substantial proportion of the shares has been owned by nationals of the State concerned. Only then, it has been held, does there exist between the corporation and the State in question a genuine connection of the kind familiar from other branches of international law. However, in the particular field of the diplomatic protection of corporate entities, no absolute test of the "genuine connection" has found general acceptance. Such tests as have been applied are of a relative nature, and sometimes links with one State have had to be weighed against those with another. In this connection reference has been made to the Nottebohm case. In fact the Parties made frequent reference to it in the course of the proceedings. However, given both the legal and factual aspects of protection in the present case the Court is of the opinion that there can be no analogy with the issues raised or the decision given in that case.
71. In the present case, it is not disputed that the company was incorporated in Canada and has its registered office in that country. The incorporation of the company under the law of Canada was an act of free choice. Not only did the founders of the company seek its incorporation under Canadian law but it has remained under that law for a period of over 50 years. It has maintained in Canada its registered office, its accounts and its share registers. Board meetings were held there for many years; it has been listed in the records of the Canadian tax authorities. Thus a close and permanent connection has been established, fortified by the passage of over half a century. This connection is in no way weakened by the fact that the company engaged from the very outset in commercial activities outside Canada, for that was its declared object. Barcelona Traction's links with Canada are thus manifold.
72. Furthermore, the Canadian nationality of the company has received general recognition. Prior to the institution of proceedings before the Court, three other governments apart from that of Canada (those of the United Kingdom, the United States and Belgium) made representa-
43tions concerning the treatment accorded to Barcelona Traction by the Spanish authorities. The United Kingdom Government intervened on behalf of bondholders and of shareholders. Several representations were also made by the United States Government, but not on behalf of the Barcelona Traction company as such.
73. Both Governments acted at certain stages in close co-operation with the Canadian Government. An agreement was reached in 1950 on the setting-up of an independent committee of experts. While the Belgian and Canadian Governments contemplated a committee composed of Belgian, Canadian and Spanish members, the Spanish Government suggested a committee composed of British, Canadian and Spanish members. This was agreed to by the Canadian and United Kingdom Governments, and the task of the committee was, in particular, to establish the monies imported into Spain by Barcelona Traction or any of its subsidiaries, to determine and appraise the materials and services brought into the country, to determine and appraise the amounts withdrawn from Spain by Barcelona Traction or any of its subsidiaries, and to compute the profits earned in Spain by Barcelona Traction or any of its subsidiaries and the amounts susceptible of being withdrawn from the country at 31 December 1949.
74. As to the Belgian Government, its earlier action was also undertaken in close co-operation with the Canadian Government. The Belgian Government admitted the Canadian character of the company in the course of the present proceedings. It explicitly stated that Barcelona Traction was a company of neither Spanish nor Belgian nationality but a Canadian company incorporated in Canada. The Belgian Government has even conceded that it was not concerned with the injury suffered by Barcelona Traction itself, since that was Canada's affair.
75. The Canadian Government itself, which never appears to have doubted its right to intervene on the company's behalf, exercised the protection of Barcelona Traction by diplomatic representation for a number of years, in particular by its note of 27 March 1948, in which it alleged that a denial of justice had been committed in respect of the Barcelona Traction, Ebro and National Trust companies, and requested that the bankruptcy judgment be cancelled. It later invoked the Anglo-Spanish treaty of 1922 and the agreement of 1924, which applied to Canada. Further Canadian notes were addressed to the Spanish Government in 1950, 1951 and 1952. Further approaches were made in 1954, and in 1955 the Canadian Government renewed the expression of its deep interest in the affair of Barcelona Traction and its Canadian subsidiaries.
76. In sum, the record shows that from 1948 onwards the Canadian Government made to the Spanish Government numerous representations which cannot be viewed otherwise than as the exercise of diplomatic
44protection in respect of the Barcelona Traction company. Therefore this was not a case where diplomatic protection was refused or remained in the sphere of fiction. It is also clear that over the whole period of its diplomatic activity the Canadian Government proceeded in full knowledge of the Belgian attitude and activity.
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