lt.szeptg.NAT
JEB
March 1993
BY FAX
File
33
CONFIDENTIAL
Foreign & Commonwealth
Office
London SWIA 2AH
Telephone: 071-
Mr Michael C C Sze
Secretary for Constitutional
Affairs
Government Secretariat
Lower Albert Road
Hong Kong
Dear Michael,
HKD 406/1
RF
0 8 MAR 1993
IN.
PRIVATE TREATY GRANT FOR COLVIN HOUSE SITE
(26)
Thank you for your letter of 23 February; I was most grateful to you for responding so quickly and so positively on the terms of the Private Treaty Grant (PTG). I appreciate that our proposed revisions raised some tricky issues for you, and that you have gone as far as you can in meeting our requests.
Your revised draft of Special Condition 14 (SC 14) goes almost all the way to answering our concern to ensure adequate protection for HMG's investment. The revision of paragraph 1 (b) is helpful. We welcomed your proposals for arbitration of any dispute about the level of compensation. We were also pleased that you can agree to a period of 24 months' notice.
I hope that you will not think us churlish in asking you to consider two small amendments before we finalise the text. do not believe they should cause any difficulty.
We would like to delete in your draft (paragraph 1(b)) the words "be fair and equitable and" and to replace the words "and would" by "which shall".
We
The reason for the deletion of a principle (fair and equitable compensation) which in other circumstances would be acceptable to us, is that your proposed draft combines two principles, the obligation to pay "fair and equitable" compensation at the same time as paying "prompt, adequate and effective
compensation". Our Legal Adviser considers that it could be confusing to combine the two principles. We would prefer "prompt, adequate and effective compensation" (the principle which appears in the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and is also a principle of customary international law) to stand alone.
CONFIDENTIAL
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.