Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here today. We do appreciate it, of course.
As a commercial litigator myself, my questions are going to relate to ISDS. I'm going to start with Mr. Valasek.
Earlier this summer, my understanding was the treaty was classified as a mixed treaty at that time, which then rendered the IS dispute system subject to member state ratification. Then obviously the original ISDS was, it appeared, going to kill the agreement in Europe, and in Germany and France particularly. I think that's what provoked the necessity of some sort of compromise on those provisions.
You indicated, Mr. Valasek, that you thought a lot of those criticisms were unfounded or misinformed. Can you elaborate on that a bit and just maybe clarify what you thought was ill-informed in those criticisms?