The Institute for Transnational Arbitration (ITA) held its 26th Annual ITA Workshop in Dallas, Texas on June 18-20, 2014. This year’s ITA Workshop, titled “Modern Enforcement of Arbitral Awards: ‘Show Me the Money,’” covered a range of recent developments and strategic considerations relating to the enforcement of arbitral awards. To kick-off this Workshop, the ITA…
The keynote speaker at this year’s ITA Annual Workshop was the Honorable Bernardo Sepúlveda-Amor. Judge Sepúlveda-Amor is Vice President of the International Court of Justice and a professor of international law at El Colegio de México. He has previously served on the United Nations International Law Commission, as Mexico’s Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and as…
In two recent rulings (see Case No. ARB 002/2013 – (1) X1, (2) X2 v. (1) Y1, (2) Y2, ruling of the DIFC Court of First Instance, undated, 2014; and Case No. ARB 003/2013 – Banyan Tree Corporate PTE LTD v. Meydan Group LLC, ruling of the DIFC Court of First Instance of 27 May…
In keeping with our tradition of surveying readers on key developments in international arbitration, we invite readers with experience in mainland China to fill out our survey on the enforcement of international arbitration awards in China. Julian Ku, Bei Xiao and I have been studying this topic for several months now, and we note the…
As part of the 26th Annual ITA Workshop taking place in Dallas on June 18-20 2014, we have prepared a survey on the experiences of arbitration practitioners with enforceability of arbitral awards in the recent past. In some respects, this builds on excellent work done in the 2010 survey of Queen Mary College/PWC, although it…
It has been over two years since the DC Circuit Court of Appeals (“Circuit Court”) vacated an award in a bilateral investment treaty arbitration (BG Group PLC v. Republic of Argentina (UNCITRAL)) concluding that the panel did not have authority to adjudicate the dispute because the claimant had not satisfied a pre-arbitration requirement, namely, litigating…
A recent ruling of the Dubai Court of Appeal (see Case No. 1/2013 – Commercial Appeal, ruling of the Dubai Court of Appeal of 9 July 2013) gives new hope that despite the Dubai Court of Cassation’s disappointing approach in Case No. 156/2013 (see my blog of 21st October 2013), the UAE courts are, in…
In a blog earlier this year (see my blog of 12 March 2013), I expressed concerns about a Dubai Court of First Instance ruling (see Case No. 489/2012, ruling of the Dubai Court of First Instance of 18 December 2012) that in complete disregard of the prevailing provisions of the New York Convention (see Convention…
A controversial decision by Qatar’s Court of Cassation has ruled on the necessity for arbitral awards to be rendered in the name of His Highness The Emir of Qatar. The said ruling issued on 12 June 2012 (Petition No. 64/2012) set aside an arbitral award rendered under the auspices of the Qatar International Center for…
One of the most important elements to consider when participating in arbitration proceedings is the available mechanisms to challenge the award of the arbitral tribunal. This element acquires an added significance when it comes to international arbitration where the award may be enforced in several jurisdictions. With that in mind, it is pertinent to refer…
The Singapore International Arbitration Centre (“SIAC”) has issued new rules that came into force on April 1, 2013. The rules changes are accompanied by new Practice Notes for cases administered by SIAC under its rules and the UNCITRAL rules that also came into force on the same date. While the changes do not reflect a…
At a conference a few years back, a well-known and respected arbitrator was speaking on the topic of predictability and consistency of arbitral decision making in investment treaty arbitration. The arbitrator asked whether arbitrators should fly solo or in flocks. He made a strong and persuasive case for the independence of the arbitrator, to fly…
This post is a little different… I am in the process of revising my treatise, International Commercial Arbitration (Kluwer 2009), and would like to solicit comments from readers of the Kluwer Arbitration Blog on various chapters of the book. I would be happy to send individual Chapters, in their revised form, to those interested in…
The U.S. Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) provides that a federal district court may vacate an arbitration award, among other reasons, “where there was evident partiality or corruption in the arbitrators.” 9 U.S.C. §10(a). However, as illustrated by a recently decided case in the Southern District of New York, U.S. district courts apply different standards of…
A new study of dispute resolution practices in Fortune 1,000 corporations shows that many large companies are using binding arbitration less often and relying more on mediated negotiation and other approaches aimed at resolving disputes informally, quickly and inexpensively. The 2011 survey of corporate counsel developed by researchers at Cornell University’s Scheinman Institute on Conflict…
By Justin D’Agostino, Martin Wallace and Yi-Shun Teoh The Year of the Snake has begun auspiciously for arbitration in Hong Kong, with a recent decision of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal (“CFA”) underlining once again the jurisdiction’s arbitration-friendly credentials and the reluctance of its courts to interfere with the arbitral process and arbitral…
Co-authored by Christopher Boog and Benjamin Moss, Schellenberg Wittmer An arbitral tribunal’s duty to render an enforceable award is frequently used by commentators and counsel alike in support of positions on myriad matters ranging from procedural fairness and jurisdiction to the application of mandatory foreign law. Its considerable malleability has indeed made it very attractive…
As its Council Member I attended the ICC Institute of World Business Law’s 32nd annual meeting on ‘Third-Party Funding in International Arbitration’ held in Paris on 26 November 2012. It was a grand success as it drew many professionals, arbitrators, experts, academic specialists and, above all, representatives from some major third-party funding bodies such as…
There are many clients who are often engaged in industrious works that result in disputes. Typically, the applicable arbitral agreements requirement submitting claims to international arbitration and, in this author’s opinion, appropriately so. However, these same clients may also be subject to frequent claim assertions that lack any true merit. Despite this, there is not…
Arbitration practitioners often put Ukraine below the average ranking of countries in terms of recognition of arbitration. Ukraine’s image of a not entirely arbitration-friendly jurisdiction is “promoted” with common thought about problematic enforcement of arbitral awards in Ukraine. In well-known case “Regent Company v. Ukraine”, the European Court of Human Rights (in its decision of…
“Research is formalized curiosity…” – Z. Hurston In what follows I have tried to gather information from publicly available sources regarding some of the questions which have troubled my mind lately. It is hoped that the results would be of interest to the readers. For me, this proved to be one of my most exciting…
A recent ruling of the Dubai Court of Cassation (the highest Court in the Emirate, against whose rulings there lies no further appeal) raises serious concerns as to whether the unruly horse of public policy that became infamous in the early nineteenth century in the common law world and in particular along the shorelines of…
On 15 April 2012, the Central Magistrate Court revoked ICAC arbitration awards obtained by the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs and declared them unenforceable due to what the court considered to be unjust arbitration procedures under Section 5 of the New York Convention on Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards. Vioans Ltd. (“Vioans”) is…
and Julia Popelysheva, Clifford Chance LLP Introduction On 19 June 2012 the Presidium of the Supreme Arbitrazh Court of the Russian Federation (“SAC RF“) issued a decree (“Decree“) in case No. VAS-1831/12 in which it examined the validity of an optional jurisdictional clause. The full text of the Decree setting out the rationale for the…
