Australia, Expropriation, Investment, Investment agreements, Investment protection, ISDS, TPP, Trans-Pacific Partnership, Uruguay

(Allende & Brea)/ /Leave a comment

by Nahila Cortes, American University Washington College of Law Much is being said about the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (“TPP”), the landmark free trade agreement signed by twelve States accounting for 40% of the world trade. Chapter 9, the investment chapter, is an important provision which applies to investors (i.e. a national or company of a…

Ad hoc arbitration, Arbitral seat, Arbitral Tribunal, Arbitration, Arbitration Act, Australia, BIT, Transparency, Transparency in investment arbitrations, Uncategorized, UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules, UNCITRAL Rules on Transparency, UNCITRAL Transparency Rules

(Australian National University)/ /2 Comments

by Esmé Shirlow (Assistant Editor for Australia & New Zealand)   Gabriele Ruscalla has recently observed that “transparency has become a fundamental principle in international adjudication”. The transparency paradigms governing different types of international adjudication are, however, far from uniform. Discussions of transparency in international arbitration typically begin, for example, from a distinction between commercial and investment treaty disputes. As Cristoffer Nyegaard Mollestad explains…

Arbitration, Domestic Courts, International arbitration, Italy

(Lombardi Segni e Associati)/ /4 Comments

According to the last “Scoreboard” published by the European Commission in 2015 regarding the civil justice system in each Member State, the average length of first instance proceedings in Italy is 608 days. Only Cyprus and Malta take more time to reach a decision. As if this was not enough, the number of proceedings which…

Arbitration, IBA Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest, Third party funding

(Coz & Blavi)/ /1 Comment

Third party funding (“TPF”) has attracted a great deal of attention from the legal community, as it offers significant advantages and poses serious risks for international arbitration. Besides guaranteeing access to justice for those who are financially incapable of bearing the costs of an arbitration proceeding, the funded party will most certainly benefit from limiting…

Arbitration, Arbitration Proceedings, Russia, Sanctions

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by Anja Havedal Ipp, Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce A year into the sanctions regime, the arbitration community is trying to assess and predict its impact on Russia-related arbitration. Some commentators have drawn somewhat exaggerated conclusions. An October 22 post at the Kluwer Arbitration Blog, for example, talked about Russia’s “seismic shift” toward…

Arbitration Act, Thailand

(White & Case LLP)/ /Leave a comment

The approach of the Kingdom of Thailand to international arbitration has undergone significantly different phases over time. These phases have ranged from support to scepticism. Recent developments, however, may signal a bright future for international arbitration in the Kingdom of Thailand and possibly the end of the journey on a winding tollway.   The Kingdom…

Europe, European Union, Vietnam

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Michael P. Daly is a Visiting Scholar at George Washington Law School and Legal Adviser to Charles N. Brower and Jawad Ahmad is a Legal Adviser at the Iran-US Claims Tribunal. The views expressed in this post are the authors’ alone.   On 2 December 2015 after more than three years of negotiations, the European…

England, English Law, Guatemala, Honduras, Latin America, Mexico, Permanent Court of Arbitration, Trans-Pacific Partnership

(20 Essex Street)/ /2 Comments

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and should not be regarded as representative of, or binding upon ArbitralWomen and/or the author’s chambers. The legal landscape in Latin America is rapidly changing. Not only has Latin America more bilateral Trade Agreements than any other region in the world, but it…

Singapore International Arbitration Centre

(Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP)/ /1 Comment
WilmerHale

by Gary Born, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP Preliminarily, I am delighted to report on the publication, this month, of the Second Edition of International Arbitration: Law and Practice (2d ed. Kluwer 2015).  For readers who are interested in the book, click here. More importantly, I am also delighted to report, in my…

Arbitral Tribunal, Hearings, Investment Arbitration, New York Convention, Trans-Pacific Partnership, Transparency in investment arbitrations

(Trinity College Dublin, School of Law)/ /2 Comments

by Sonja Heppner, Trinity College Dublin, School of Law The text of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (‘TPP’) as agreed upon between the United States and Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam on 5 October 2015 provides for public arbitral hearings. The approach taken by the prospective signatories of…

Journal of International Arbitration

(WilmerHale & Queen Mary University of London)/ /Leave a comment

Volume 32 (2015) Issue 6 contains: ARTICLES SECTION Bernard HANOTIAU, Non-signatories, Groups of Companies and Groups of Contracts in Selected Asian Countries: A Case Law Analysis Abstract: More than one-third of all international arbitration cases filed these recent years have involved issues of non-signatories, groups of companies or groups of contracts. The scenarios are diverse,…

Discovery, Document Production, Willem C. Vis Moot

(Vischer AG)/ /Leave a comment

by Reto Marghitola, Vischer AG Document production, the topic of my new book, is a permanent issue in international arbitration. Now, it has even entered the fictional world of the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot. Document production is an important subject matter of this year’s competition. Many of the readers of this post…

Annulment, BIT, Ecuador, ICSID Arbitration, ICSID Convention, Investment Arbitration

(Flor & Hurtado)/ /Leave a comment

by Juan Carlos Herrera Q. Puente & Asociados In the middle of a short holiday, the Ecuadorian Government anxiously expected the Decision on Annulment issued by the Ad-hoc Committee regarding the investment arbitration initiated by Oxy. On November 2nd, 2015, the ICSID published on its web site the Decision and this event provoked a major…

Arbitration, Investment Arbitration, Treaty, Treaty Interpretation

(London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Law)/ /5 Comments

by Velimir Živković, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Law Imagine that in the heyday of post-Cold War period State A concluded a number of bilateral investment treaties (”BITs”) with a number of countries. Due to a variety of factors, these lay dormant for decades as State A is not exposed to investor…

Arbitration institution, Arbitration Institutions and Rules, Bosnia and Herzegovina

(University of Aberdeen)/ /Leave a comment

1. Introduction There is no precise information as to when the Arbitration Court attached to the Foreign Chamber of Commerce of Bosnia and Herzegovina was established (Arbitration Court). There is some sporadic information according to which the Arbitration Court was established in the post Second World War period, but at that time the Arbitration Court’s…

Ad hoc arbitration, Arbitration, Arbitration Agreements, Arbitration Awards, Arbitration Proceedings, Commercial Arbitration, Enforcement, Georgia, kompetenz-kompetenz, Set aside an arbitral award

(Hogan Lovells)/ /1 Comment

In 2009, Georgia adopted a new Law on Arbitration (“Law on Arbitration”) based on the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration with amendments as adopted in 2006 (“Model Law”). Shortly thereafter, Mr. Michael Wietzorek commented on the implementation of the new law on the Kluwer Arbitration Blog (here) and qualified this as a “significant…

Courts, India

(Clifford Chance)/ /1 Comment

Any discussion on the Indian Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (the “Act“) is incomplete without a reference to the scope of judicial interference introduced by the Supreme Court of India (the “SCI“) through its judgment of Bhatia International v. Union of India (2002 4 SCC 105) (“Bhatia International“). Two judgments of the SCI, dated 28…

Cambodia, Moot Courts

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ArbitralWomen

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and should not be regarded as representative of, or binding upon ArbitralWomen and/or the author’s law firm. A few weeks ago, a small team of educators gathered in Phnom Penh for the second Vis East Moot Foundation1)Vis East Moot Foundation Ltd, registered Hong…

Appeal, Applicable Law, Arbitration, Arbitration Proceedings, Croatia, Small claims

(University of Aberdeen)/ /Leave a comment

In January 2015, a new arbitration institution, under somewhat ambiguous name of the Civil Arbitration Court (“Parnični arbitražni sud”) [“CAC”], was established. The program and rules provided by the CAC reveal its dedication to provide parties with an alternative forum for the resolution of disputes related to small claims, as in accordance with the principles…

Corruption

(FERRERE Abogados)/ /2 Comments

It has been some time since Judge Gunnar Lagergren – 52 years precisely – arbitrated a case (ICC No. 1110) whose underlying contract involved an agreement to pay bribes, and where he proffered a landmark award holding that “a case such as this, involving such gross violation of good morals and international public policy, can…

Ad hoc arbitration, BIT, Dispute Resolution, Investment Arbitration, Investment protection, Investor, ISDS, Jurisdiction, Jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal, Uncategorized

(Australian National University)/ /Leave a comment

As Mariel Dimsey has observed, a key challenge posed by investment treaties is that – at the point of ratification – they expose States to arbitrations of ‘as-yet-unknown scope and against as-yet-unknown claimants’. Gus van Harten and Martin Loughlin argue that this feature differentiates investment disputes from those heard in other fora, transforming investment disputes into something akin to ‘domestic judicial review of state conduct’….

Arbitration, Arbitration Awards, Consent awards, Enforcement, Settlement

(British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL))/ /Leave a comment

In September 2015 the UNCITRAL Working Group II (Arbitration and Conciliation) continued its work on formulating legal framework on the enforcement of settlement agreements, including a convention, model provisions or guidance texts. Currently, parties can request arbitration tribunals to record their settlement agreements as consent awards, i.e. an arbitral award on terms agreed upon by…

Ethics, Uncategorized

(Schellenberg Wittmer)/ /3 Comments

The Swiss Arbitration Association (“ASA”) has called recently for the creation of a transnational body, the Global Arbitration Ethics Council, to whom matters of alleged unethical conduct would be referred. This entity would provide a truly global solution to a global problem and overcome one of the main criticisms levelled against both the IBA Guidelines…

ICSID Convention, Iraq

(Armstrong Teasdale)/ /Leave a comment

The Middle East is undergoing a period of extreme political, economic and social unrest. In modern Iraq, the chaos wrought by Da’esh is causing major difficulties for the government and for ordinary businesses and individuals. However, in the midst of this turmoil, on 18 November 2015, Iraq finally made good its promise by ratifying the…