In recent years, criticism that international arbitration rules lean too heavily on common law traditions—with similar legal costs as a result—has culminated in the creation of multiple new sets of arbitration rules, each claiming to facilitate more efficient arbitration proceedings through civil law-based case management strategies. Whether those rules actually result in more proactive management…

International arbitration has been regarded as a flexible and efficient dispute resolution mechanism. While this may hold true for most phases of the arbitration, document production (i.e., the phase where a party requests the other party to produce documents that are in the other party’s possession and are relevant to the dispute and material to…

Introduction Document production has become a standard phase in international arbitration, but the documents sought and produced often turn out to be voluminous. As such, document production is perceived as a time-consuming, costly, and burdensome process. This has prompted practitioners to come up with the Rules on the Efficient Conduct of Proceedings in International Arbitration (“Prague…

The Singapore International Arbitration Centre (“SIAC”) hosted its Congress on 2 September 2020.  For the first time, the Congress was held virtually.  The Chairman of the Board of Directors of SIAC, Mr Davinder Singh, SC, in his welcome address thanked over 1,000 attendees for attending virtually from all over the world despite time zone differences. …

How severely are international construction projects affected by global COVID-19 pandemic? What does the COVID-19 pandemic mean for international construction disputes? As with so many other questions arising in relation to the pandemic, these questions will only be answered definitively in retrospect. For construction arbitration practitioners though, one of the immediate and graspable effects has…

As in most jurisdictions, Germany based arbitral tribunals and German state courts assessing challenges to arbitral awards are often confronted with questions regarding the conflict between the parties’ right to be heard and the denial of the parties’ requests for evidence. In recent years, the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof – BGH)1)E.g. BGH case…

Introduction  The Prague Rules have been widely discussed over the past few months, among others, on this blog.1)Posts on the topic of the Prague Rules can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. Yet, to the knowledge of the authors, none of those discussions has specifically addressed the application of…

The main concerns of parties when considering arbitration are the costs and length of arbitration proceedings (see, e.g., Queen Mary University of London 2018 International Arbitration Survey). The popularity of arbitration as a method of resolving construction disputes thus depends largely on whether costs can be reduced and efficiency maintained. This is particularly the case…

  The Danish Institute of Arbitration (DIA) and ICC Denmark hosted Copenhagen Arbitration Day earlier this year. Discussion took place on a wide range of topics such as the criticism of arbitration, diversity and the Prague Rules. The day began with three lunchtime seminars. The first took place at the University of Copenhagen, where four…

The publication of the Rules on the Efficient Conduct of Proceedings in Arbitration (“Prague Rules”) on 14 December 2018 heralded a challenge to the well-established incumbent (i.e. the International Bar Association (“IBA”) Rules on the Taking of Evidence (“Evidence Rules”)) and prompted much debate amongst the arbitral community, including at least six posts on this…

The following article is the result of a collective project, carried out by one of the groups of the Young ICCA Mentoring Programme, comprised of Juan Pablo Valdivia Pizarro, Andreea I. Nica and Maria Teder, as Mentees, Vladimir Khvalei, as Mentor, and Laurence Ponty, as Buddy. With the benefit of Vladimir Khvalei being one of…

The X CAI Costa Rica held by the Costa Rican Chapter of the ICC and its Arbitration Commission, took place in San Jose, Costa Rica between February 24 and 27, 2019. Ten years have led to its consolidation as one of the most important ICC events in the region. This year’s intensive program included several…

On December 2018, the Prague Rules on the Efficient Conduct of Proceedings in International Arbitration (“Prague Rules”) were released. (For related posts on the Prague Rules on Kluwer Arbitration Blog click here, here, here, and here.) The Prague Rules aim to increase efficiency and reduce costs in arbitral proceedings. The project arose from a general…

Overview1)The views expressed herein are those of the authors and should not be construed as necessarily reflecting those of their firm or of any of its clients. On 1 January 2019 the Japan Commercial Arbitration Association (the “JCAA“) amended its two current sets of arbitration rules. At the same time, it introduced an additional set…

The Prague Rules on the Efficient Conduct of Proceedings in International Arbitration will be officially launched this week (December 14). This set of rules of evidence and procedure formulated from civil law practices has already generated a substantial and healthy debate within the international arbitration community, including here on the Kluwer blog, on whether they…

Document production is one of the most important and controversial topics in international arbitration. Some practitioners consider the document production as “an essential element of justice”, whereas some others consider it as “a waste of time and money”. So, where does the truth lie? Does Common Law Provide Better Justice than Civil Law or Vice…