Corporacion Mexicana de Mantenimento Integral, S. de. R.L. de C.V. v. Pemex-Exploracion v Producción

In 1997 Corporacion Mexicana de Mantenimento Integral, S. de. R.L. de C.V. (COMMISA) (plaintiff), a subsidiary of a United States corporation, and Mexican state-owned Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) (defendant) entered into a contract for COMMISA to build and install two offshore natural-gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. The contract contained an arbitration clause and also stated that Mexican law applied to the agreement. In 2004 a dispute arose, and COMMISA commenced arbitration, and shortly thereafter, PEMEX issued an administrative rescission of the contract. The administrative rescission became an issue to be decided through the same arbitration. During the pendency of the arbitration proceedings, Mexico enacted two statutes, which took effect in 2007 and 2009, requiring that challenges to administrative rescissions be litigated exclusively before the Federal Tax and Administrative Justice Court (not through arbitration) and that such claims be filed within a 45-day statute of limitations. The arbitration proceeded, and in 2009 the panel issued an award in favor of COMMISA. PEMEX filed suit in the Mexican courts, seeking to nullify the award against it. After extended proceedings, the Mexican appellate court nullified the award, relying in part on the new statute disallowing arbitration of administrative rescission and in part on the conclusion that the administrative rescission was an act of authority by the Mexican state and therefore not subject to arbitration. By this time, the 45-day statute of limitations to file a claim before the Federal Tax and Administrative Justice Court had expired, and COMMISA was without recourse on its claims in Mexico. COMMISA filed an action in United States district court to enforce the arbitral award under the Inter-American Convention on International Commercial Arbitration (Panama Convention).