Colombia has lost an international arbitration case brought by Spanish telecoms giant Telefónica, with a ruling by the ad hoc committee of ICSID (the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes) now requiring Bogotá to pay over €500 million — comprising €357.6 million in principal, roughly €153 million in accrued interest, and legal costs accumulated over eight years of proceedings. The dispute dates to 2017, when a Colombian national tribunal ordered Telefónica's local subsidiary to hand over telecommunications infrastructure under a 1994 concession clause, a ruling ICSID found violated the fair and equitable treatment guarantees of a 2005 bilateral investment treaty between Colombia and Spain. The decision became immediately enforceable after Colombia's state legal agency failed to lodge the required bank guarantee within the allotted 30-day window, reportedly because the 2026 national budget left no funds available; President Gustavo Petro's government, which has proposed withdrawing Colombia from ICSID altogether, says it will pursue all remaining legal avenues, including a nullification hearing scheduled for Paris in June 2026.