NAFTA panel avoids question of IP chapter violation in Eli Lilly ruling

An investor-state dispute settlement panel this week did not rule on whether a violation of the North American Free Trade Agreement's intellectual property chapter constitutes a compensable expropriation because the complainant, Eli Lilly, was unable to prove that Canada expropriated the company's IP. The panel, ruling in favor of Canada, found that Eli Lilly could not prove that Canadian courts had substantially changed the country's patent law, which the U.S.-based pharmaceutical giant had said resulted in the expropriation of its...