'Whereas, by letter of November 10, 2004, the Claimant complained about the fact that the Respondents had submitted some documents and a witness statement in Spanish with their brief of November 8, 2004, and also with their brief of December 15, 2003;

Whereas, the Claimant stressed that, since paragraph 47 of the Terms of Reference stated that the language of the arbitration should be English, the Respondents should have submitted an English translation of the same;

Whereas, the Claimant declared that "Until such time as translations are received (...), Respondents will have failed to deliver their Statement of Counterclaim in accordance with Procedural Order No. 1 (as supplemented by the Terms of Reference)". Claimant also reserves the right to recover any costs it may incur in respect of translating into English the Respondents' above mentioned submissions;

Whereas, the Respondents answered by letter of November 17, 2004;

Whereas, the Respondents recalled that Article 13 of the Contract provided that the three arbitrators appointed in any arbitration arising out of the Contract were to be fluent in Spanish, despite the fact that the same Article 13 stated that "the language of the arbitration shall be English"; they added that the parties made no reference to the translation of any Spanish language documents in Article 13;

Whereas, the Respondents contended that Article 13 was drafted anticipating the fact that nearly all the relevant documents generated in the course of performance of the Contract were in Spanish, and that nearly all of the witnesses involved in this matter have Spanish as their mother tongue;

Whereas, the Respondents stressed that they had submitted several Spanish language documents with previous submissions presented in this arbitration prior to the signature of the Terms of Reference, without any objection from the Claimant;

Whereas, the Respondents contended that, although the issue of Spanish language documents was therefore clearly raised prior to the conclusion of the Terms of Reference, the Claimant failed to make any reference to or request for their translation into English, and the Terms of Reference contained therefore no provision for the translation into English of Spanish language documents;

Whereas, the Respondents added that the Claimant itself relied after the signature of the Terms of Reference on documents in French, for which it provided no translation;

Whereas, according to the Respondents, "the intention of the parties in this matter has been clear all along: while oral and written submissions by counsel are to be made in this matter in English, original documents and witness statements in the Spanish language (or, for that matter, in French) can be submitted to the Arbitral Tribunal without translation";

Whereas, the Respondents rejected the Claimant's submission that absent the English translation of the Spanish language documents submitted, they would have failed to deliver their Brief in accordance with Procedural Order No. 1;

Whereas, the Respondents also rejected the Claimants further suggestion that it has any right to recover costs it could incur in translating any document submitted;

Whereas, the Respondents requested the Arbitral Tribunal to "confirm that the parties to this arbitration are not required to provide translations of Spanish language (or French language) documents submitted in this matter";

Whereas, the Arbitral Tribunal is satisfied that the arbitration clause of the Contract, although providing that the language of the arbitration shall be English, states that the Arbitrators that will deal with any dispute concerning the interpretation or implementation of the Contract "shall be fluent in Spanish";

Whereas, it seems obvious that this provision corresponds to a will of the parties that this knowledge be useful in the arbitration;

Whereas, the arbitration clause does not contain any provision concerning the necessity of any translation of the documents to be submitted in the arbitration;

Whereas, it is therefore logical to conclude that the intention of the parties by requiring that the Arbitrators be fluent in Spanish was that they could study the Spanish language documents submitted without needing any translation;

Whereas, however, this interpretation could not be extended to documents in French language-the Arbitral Tribunal takes note that no application for translation of documents in French language has been made so far in this arbitration;

According to the above, the Arbitral Tribunal decides that

The parties are not required to provide English translations of Spanish language documents submitted in this arbitration.'