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The present paper intends to present the evolution registered in the ICSID - International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes – cases during FY2020, comparing with the historical evolution, in order to identify the possible effect of COVID 19 on the dynamics of registering and administrating cases and also in the hearings, if any. Many economic sectors had been deeply affected by the pandemic, and they have shown a real capability to adapt their way of acting and doing things. International arbitration made no difference, and it showed a real adaptive capacity, allowing the existing cases to follow their path and also registering new cases without delays. In 16 April 2020 the leading organisation of arbitration (the CRCICA, DIS, ICC, ICDR/AAA, ICSID, KCAB, LCIA, MCA, HKIAC, SCC, SIAC, VIAC and the International Federation of Commercial Arbitration Institutions) released a common statement on COVID 19: “Collaboration is particularly important as each of our institutions looks to ensure that we make the best use of digital technologies for working remotely.” The first element to be notice in the 2020 ICSID Statistics is the fact that the number of the cases registered during 2020 had touched a new record, 58 new cases. The previous record was of 56, and was registered in 2018, meanwhile in 2019 there were registered 39 new cases. One big difference occurred in the way of holding the hearings, in the last 9 months of the year 2020, all the hearings were held remotely, 78% by video and 22% by phone. ICSID had developed and used their one video conferencing platform. In terms of industry, States parties involved, proceedings outcomes, nationality of arbitrators appointed there were some evolutions but with no significant changes.

In the present work I propose an analysis, both theoretically and empirically, about the social economy through various forms of organization which exist in the European countries. As a result of this analysis, I will show that in some countries the concept of social economy, and implicitly its forms of organization, enjoys a higher level of acceptance and in others this concept is in its early stages of implementation. The social economy in Europe has established numerous organizations to act as its representatives. Through them, the social economy of Europe took part in the processes of elaboration and implementation of national and EU policies. In different European countries social economy associations have created platforms that represent credit unions, labor and agricultural cooperatives, mutual insurance companies, corporations and associations of complementary insurance and other non-governmental organizations of social action. The social economy has played a historic role in different EU policies since the Treaty was signed in Rome, when it was founded Eurocoop, the organization representing consumer cooperatives in Europe, and in the process of developing the common agricultural policy. For social economy organizations, the economic performances are separated from the social ones, so the efficiency is often difficult to measure. It has responsibilities not only towards its members but also to the community, generating the term 'Social Responsibility' or Corporate Social Responsibility (C.S.R.). Economic and social reality shows that the expression 'social economy' is widespread and expanding in all EU countries. But the term 'social economy' and its scientific concept is not the same in all EU countries, sometimes within the same country coexists with other terms and similar concepts. The development of social economy in the new Member States of the European Union involves a reconstruction of the national systems. A competitive social financing cannot be achieved without real support from both the political environment and the business environment. All of this must be completed by a incentive and supportive legislative system.

From a theoretical point of view, it can be observed that the European Union financing mechanisms and resources were conceived in the spirit of convergence materialization. However, in practice, the suboptimal absorption of Structural and Cohesion funds is determined by a series of specificities of each Member State. Critics say that European financing rules have created the mold from which the projects are written and implemented only for spending money. But how is the impact of such projects measured? What tools does an evaluator have when assessing the impact of European funded projects? The paper deals with different macroeconomic evaluation stages, in order to better understand the use of specific evaluation methodologies, such as: cost-benefit analysis and its performance indicators, for the evaluation of projects submitted for financing; counterfactual method, for the evaluation of a financing sub-measure or measure integrated in a priority axis of an operational program; macroeconomic models, for the impact forecasting or evaluation on a specific country or a group of countries. For Romania, a specific macroeconomic model HERMIN was studied by various research centres and authors. The cost-benefit analysis became an often used instrument and prerequisite for some operational programs. However, the use of counterfactual method became a premier for Romania in 2015, when there were conducted impact evaluation studies on specific financing measures of the Regional Operational Program 2007-2013. On this multilevel evaluation scale, the authors would say that a realistic assessment lays in the cost-benefit analysis of the project, narrows throughout the counterfactual evaluation of the financing measure and disappears in the over-estimations of the macroeconomic models. We must take into consideration the 'with funding', scenario and the„ without funding, alternative in order to understand the additionality principle of European funding and to realize that the effects of economic convergence are visible in time.

The present paper is part of a larger study that aims to identify some of the factors that have a great impact on the quantum of the damages awarded in ICSID cases. The driver of this study is the high level of the damages awarded in this sort of disputes between foreign investors and the host state. In 2012 the ICSID tribunal awarded more than 1.77 billion USD for a breach of Fair and Equitable Treatment standard and indirect expropriation by Ecuador. Another reason for choosing this subject is the increasing number of the cases judged at this Centre. The analytical method used for analysing the determination relation between the identified factors and the quantum of the damages is the linear regression analysis. For the data collection were used as many cases’ awards as could been found published on the official site, from which were selected the cases were damages were awarded, in number of 30. For all the analysis made the statistical signification was followed and additional statistics trimming methods used, were necessary. The first factor that had been chosen was the value of damages requested, the calculations showing the impact assumed for it. The reasons beside this selection are pretty obvious: it is the most obvious factor on which the arbitrator can rely, it has the same nature of value, and it’s based on an expert’s report of damages’ valuation. There is plenty room for further analysis, this only representing the starting point, but is very important step in configuring the data base on which the following analysis will be set. For each case studied there are other characteristics, beside the value of damages requested, that were extracted and presented in order to determinate there impact or the lack of impact. For these factors is needed a preparation operation of pondering because of their nature, non-numerical, so that these will be the subject of a further analysis. The importance of this paper is also given by the definitions of the elements used in the factors’ impact analysis.