The COVID-19 pandemic has normalized virtual hearings. According to the Ontario Superior Court, this has made the doctrine of forum non conveniens obsolete. In Kore Meals LLC v Freshii Development LLC, 2021 ONSC 2896, in the context of an application to stay Canadian court proceedings in favour of arbitration in the U.S., the Ontario Superior Court…

The 1958 United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (“New York Convention”) is the engine that makes international arbitration an effective mechanism to resolve disputes. The purpose of the New York Convention is to encourage and simplify the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. In the case of Figueiredo…

By an order of late last year (ARB 002/2014 – A v. B, Order of Justice Sir David Steel of 16 December 2014), Justice Sir David Steel dismissed an application by an award debtor seeking a number of orders to avoid the recognition and enforcement of an award rendered by the Dubai International Arbitration Centre…

By Order of 5 January 2014 (see Case ARB 001/2014 – (1) X1 (2) X2 v. (1) Y, Order of the Dubai Court of First Instance), H.E. Justice Ali Al Madhani, one of the UAE-national resident judges of the DIFC Courts, dismissed an application by an award debtor for an order referring a purported conflict…

On December 14, the Second Circuit rendered its decision in Figueiredo Ferraz e Engenharia de Projecto Ltda. v. Republic of Peru, 2001 WL 6188497 (2d Cir. Dec. 14, 2011), which represents a significant development in the court’s jurisprudence on forum non conveniens dismissals of actions to enforce foreign arbitral awards. As explained below, the decision…

Yesterday a federal court in New York granted Chevron’s request for discovery of outtakes from the 2009 documentary Crude about the multi-billion dollar litigation in Ecuador. Chevron’s request was pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1782, which authorizes a judge in the United States to order discovery of evidence to be used in proceedings before a foreign…

Several years ago, three United States Courts of Appeal contemporaneously dismissed actions to enforce foreign arbitral awards for lack of personal jurisdiction, a development that provoked expressions of concern from the arbitration bar. Adding to their dread, the United States Court of Appeal for the Second Circuit dismissed an enforcement action on forum non conveniens…