Summary

The worldwide wave of privatisation of previously government-owned and operated energy industries has led in many, if not most, cases to acute disputes between the new, typically foreign-investor, purchasers, concession-based contractors and other forms of investor-operators as the logic of business (stability of terms, recovery of risk-compatible returns) clashes with the politicised character of the energy and utility industries in most countries. While governments have tried quietly to withdraw from implicit and explicit subsidies, the people still expect such public ...