Delhaize Serbia Profit Falls 85% Amid ICSID Arbitration
An ICSID tribunal has been formed in Ahold Delhaize's dispute with Serbia over retail margins, as financial results show the Maxi owner's 2025 net profit fell 85 percent to about 8.9 million euros.
Eighty five percent: that is how far Delhaize Serbia’s net profit fell in 2025, from 7.4 billion dinars (about 63 million euros) to roughly 1 billion dinars (about 8.9 million euros). The figure comes from the Maxi owner’s financial report for last year, published the same day it emerged that an arbitration tribunal had been formed at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) to hear the dispute between Ahold Delhaize and Serbia.
Who sits on the tribunal
The tribunal was formed on August 4, 2026. Both sides agreed on Cavinder Bull, a lawyer from Singapore, as chair. Delhaize appointed American lawyer D. Brian King as its tribunal member, while Serbia chose Swiss-Argentine professor Jorge E. Viñuales of Clare College, University of Cambridge.
Serbia is represented in the proceedings by three law firms: the American firm Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle, the Belgrade firm Mihaj, Ilic & Milanovic, and the Brussels firm Gecic Law. The legal team also includes Dusan Popovic and Marko Jovanovic, professors at the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law. Delhaize is represented by the Amsterdam firm De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek.
Why the claim was filed
Ahold Delhaize filed its request for arbitration in early February 2026, invoking the bilateral investment protection treaty between the Netherlands and Serbia. At issue is a Serbian government regulation that, from September 1, 2025, capped retail trade margins at 20 percent across 23 product categories, including milk and dairy products, eggs, soft drinks, tea, fruit and vegetables, bread and pastry, meat, fish, confectionery, sugar, flour and pasta. The measure was amended several times afterward and expired at the end of February 2026.
In the notes to its financial report, the company states:
The margin cap regulation, upon entering into force, had a significant negative impact on the retail sector in general, and consequently on Delhaize’s commercial policy.
Revenue steady, profit cut in half, then in half again
Delhaize Serbia’s operating revenue stayed at roughly the same level in both years, around 1.4 billion euros. Only profit fell. In 2025 the company permanently closed 25 stores and paid severance totaling 119.8 million dinars (about 1 million euros) to workers made redundant. The average number of employees dropped from 12,412 in 2024 to 11,994 in 2025, a decrease of 418 people. The available material does not show how many of those job losses came specifically from the store closures and how many came from other causes.
Seventy five or 85 percent: the numbers don’t match
Two separate figures need to be kept apart here. The 85 percent drop in net profit is a confirmed number, taken directly from Delhaize Serbia’s financial report. But how much of the company’s revenue the regulation affected, according to the company itself, is a different question, and the sources disagree on it. Some Serbian outlets reported that Delhaize said the measure had affected more than 85 percent of its revenue in Serbia. Ahold Delhaize’s own press release from February 6, 2026, which announced the start of arbitration, says something else:
This sudden and unprecedented state intervention in the retail market affects more than 75% of Delhaize Serbia’s revenue.
In other words, the company’s own statement puts the affected share of its Serbian revenue at more than 75 percent, not 85 percent. The 85 percent figure is inaccurate in this context and most likely arose from confusion with the same number that, quite correctly, describes the drop in Delhaize Serbia’s net profit over the same period.
How much Delhaize has invested in Serbia
In its February 6 statement, Ahold Delhaize said Delhaize Serbia operates 547 stores, employs more than 11,000 people, and has invested 536 million euros in the country over the past decade. Those figures form the backdrop against which the company is now asking the ICSID tribunal to decide whether Serbia’s margin cap breached the bilateral investment protection treaty with the Netherlands.
The next step in the proceedings is an exchange of submissions between the two sides before the tribunal, for which ICSID does not typically publish a fixed deadline in advance. If the tribunal finds that the treaty was breached, the outcome would normally lead to a damages claim, though neither side has publicly disclosed a figure at this stage of the dispute.
