Xxxxxxxx’s request for moral damages is a pretext to harvest punitive damages Sample Clauses

Xxxxxxxx’s request for moral damages is a pretext to harvest punitive damages. 163. Claimant is ultimately seeking punitive damages, which are barred under Art. XX(5) of the BIT,278 under the guise of moral damages. 164. Punitive damages have been defined as damages “awarded […] over and above the actual economic, financial or other material loss, where the wrong done was aggravated by reprehensible conduct of the wrongdoing party”.279 In other words, they are to punish or sanction the offender, not to compensate a quantifiable harm. 165. Thus, when requesting a high sum of money as compensation, with no relation to the damage allegedly suffered (and which harm is in fact unquantifiable), it is considered to be punitive in nature.280 If awarded, the purpose would be not to compensate, but to dissuade, to punish. 275 Pey Xxxxxx, ¶704; Xxxxxxxxxxx, ¶140; Gavazzi II, ¶297. 276 Desert Line, ¶290. 277 Benvenuti, ¶4.96. 278 BIT, Art.XX(5). 279 XXXXXXX, p.667. 280 XXXXX, p.433. 166. Furthermore, one of the lone tribunals that awarded compensation for moral damages was Border Timbers v. Zimbabwe, which did so with the punitive intention of “condemning the actions of the offending State”,281 and proceeded to award a sum in a speculative manner by just replicating the amount granted in Desert Line, with no adaptation to the circumstances of the case whatsoever. This is because it found no financially assessable damage, and still awarded an arbitrary amount for that claim. Thus, that tribunal’s decision must be understood not as moral compensation, but as a punitive sanction.