The Saudi Center for Commercial Arbitration (“SCCA”) has recently revamped its rules, aiming to solidify its position as a global leader in arbitration. The latest amendments, which have been elaborated in a previous post here, showcase a commitment to efficiency, flexibility, and party engagement, appearing to set a new standard for commercial dispute resolution and…

2023 was another year of growth for arbitration in Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. It saw developments in investment arbitration and disputes relating to climate change, efforts to improve gender and cultural diversity, debate and guidance on the use of artificial intelligence, and pro-arbitration jurisprudence. We explore some of these key themes below….

In 2011, the ITA published its inaugural Guide to Arbitral Institutions in Latin America and an accompanying “Scoreboard.” The conclusion of this inaugural guide was: “The era of Latin American arbitral institutions has arrived. Building on a strong legal framework, arbitral institutions have emerged throughout the region.” This year, the Americas Initiative of the ITA…

The first edition of Mexico Arbitration Week took place in Mexico City last May, bringing together over 120 attendees and more than sixty speakers. The primary objective of this event was to connect Spanish-speaking international arbitration professionals, fostering discussions, and promoting Mexico as a prominent seat for international arbitration. The event was jointly organized and…

In November 2022, a contract-based arbitral tribunal issued an anti-arbitration injunction with the aim of enjoining parallel investment treaty proceedings between the parties. This post examines this injunction – which was ignored by the investment-treaty tribunal – and its implications.   Background In March 2020, Patel Engineering Limited (“PEL”), an Indian-incorporated infrastructure and construction service…

In 2022, Canadian courts revisited some old issues, like the timeframe for recognizing foreign arbitral awards, but also faced new dilemmas, such as the impact of sanctions on recognition and enforcement. Fostering Canada’s pro-arbitration standing, courts were generally adamant about referring commercial parties to arbitration, although a few exceptions that arose in insolvency contexts are…

According to Aviation: Benefits Beyond Borders, statistics from 2018-2020 demonstrate that the general aviation industry supports 87.7 million jobs worldwide and contributes around US$ 3.5 trillion a year to the global GDP (equivalent to 4.1% of global GDP). In parallel, the general aviation industry is increasingly turning to international arbitration. One clear manifestation of this…

A slate of recent cases reminded us how important are the doctrines of res judicata and/or collateral estoppel. Put simply, res judicata is known as claim preclusion because a judicial judgment or arbitral award deciding a particular “claim” will be binding on the parties who participated in that proceeding, whereas collateral estoppel is known as…

The theme of this year’s ICCA Congress was “Arbitration’s Age of Enlightenment?”, a reference to the Scottish Enlightenment, an age in which the old order was challenged, and new ideas led to innovation in several fields. The ICCA Programme Committee’s formulation of the Congress theme as a question rather than a statement is telling: its…

Winston Churchill said in 1942 that the war was not at the end, adding: “It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning”. When it comes to international arbitration, the beginning is easy enough to discern from the notice of arbitration. Divining the end can be…

As of January 1, 2022, the Conciliation and Arbitration Center of the Uruguayan Chamber of Commerce and Services (“Center”) has new Arbitration Rules (the “2021 Rules”) in force. They apply to cases filed from January 1, 2022 onwards. Following the trend of several other institutions in the region, who updated their rules in 2021, in…

Welcome to the Kluwer Arbitration Blog, Ms. Coelho!  We are grateful for this opportunity to learn more about the Center for Arbitration and Mediation of the Chamber of Commerce Brazil-Canada (CAM-CCBC), and its administration of complex disputes, as well as about the attractiveness of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro as seats for international arbitration. …

It is well-known that confidentiality is a particularly important mechanism for protecting the information and data contained in a process in which disclosure could cause prejudice to the parties. That is because the mere existence of a lawsuit may sometimes lead to considerable consequences for the parties, as it may affect the perception of third…

Corruption, annulment of arbitral awards and court intervention mark the main developments for 2020 in Latin America.  Our contributors this year reported on the most important judicial decisions and legislative measures impacting the legal framework of various jurisdictions in the region. A new ‘hot topic’ arising from the COVID-19 pandemic is the interplay between arbitration…

Welcome to the Kluwer Arbitration Blog, Ms. Sámano!  We are grateful for this opportunity to learn more about the Arbitration Center of Mexico – CAM; the type of disputes it handles and the way it is addressing recent developments, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the adoption of new policies from the Andrés Manuel López…

We initiate our traditional Year in review series of 2020 with a retrospective view of the reported developments in the Sub-Saharan Africa. In this post, we aim at giving you a quick look back to some of our most impactful publications in 2020 from this geographical area, with a focus on the commercial arbitration developments…

In its judgment of 26 November 2019 (I ACa 457/18), the Warsaw Court of Appeal gave its view on the duties of arbitrators and counsel in cases involving state aid. In a well-argued decision, the Court reversed the decision of the lower court and annulled an award rendered by a prominent international tribunal on the…

Most individuals with involvement in international arbitration—as a scholar, practitioner, arbitrator, or as a brave student participating in a moot competition—have cited Gary Born for some legal principle. Indeed, sometimes this name is cited by opposing sides in support of their contrary legal arguments. While this has been a common practice among students and, in…

From practically the moment the Supreme Court of Canada’s (SCC) decision in Uber Technologies v Heller was released, commercial arbitration practitioners and scholars—including on this blog—have criticized it for weakening the cherished competence-competence principle. We submit that those who defend Uber’s problematic arbitration clause in the name of protecting competence-competence love arbitration not wisely, but…

Document production in China – getting to maybe Document production (also known as “discovery”) is still a very foreign concept in China’s civil law court system. The traditional notion of “who claims, proves” (“谁主张,谁举证“) in China’s Civil Procedural Law has ingrained in people’s mind that one has to prove its case by its own evidence….

Recently, the Constitutional Chamber of the Venezuelan Supreme Court of Justice (the “Court”) issued an interlocutory judgment ordering the Business Center for Conciliation and Arbitration (CEDCA) to stay an arbitration and to forward the arbitration file in order to decide on a request for “avocamiento” filed by one of the parties before the Court. This…

The Paris Court of Appeal recently upheld an ICC award where the arbitral tribunal exclusively applied the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts (‘the Principles’) as lex contractus failing any agreement on the applicable law between the parties. This recent development deserves further analysis as it confirms French courts’ favourable attitude towards the application of…

2019 was a lively year for international arbitration in Latin America – especially in the international commercial arbitration arena, which is the focus of this post. Contributors to Kluwer Arbitration Blog reported mostly on favorable developments on arbitration-related legislation, case law and other initiatives. The year, however, ended with a regrettable situation in Peru, where…

As the world marched in support of global action on climate change, the German DIS40/below 40 arbitrators’ group showed its support for the cause at a conference on Arbitration and Climate Change on 10 September 2019. After a warm welcome by DIS federal coordinator Jennifer Bryant (Noerr) the conference started off with a panel discussion…