and Oleg Temnikov Foreword The recent decision on preliminary objections, dated 17 January 2014, against the application for annulment in Elsamex S.A. v. Honduras (ARB/09/4) brought renewed interest in the procedure for summary dismissal of unmeritorious claims under Rule 41(5) of the ICSID Arbitration Rules. The present post examines shortly this procedure as well as…

Dr. Ileana M. Smeureanu 1)Ileana Smeureanu is an associate attorney with Jones Day (Paris). This article is based on a speech that the author gave at the ICC YAF/YAPP 6TH Joint Annual Colloquium “Young Approaches to Arbitration”, Vienna (Austria), 12 April 2014. The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and…

In two recent decisions, Banyan Tree v. Meydan Group LLC (Case No. ARB 003-2013) and X1 and X2 v. Y1 and Y2 (Case No. ARB 002-2013), the DIFC Court of First Instance (H.E. Justice Omar Al Muhairi and Sir John Chadwick respectively) confirmed its jurisdiction to recognise and enforce within the DIFC arbitral awards rendered…

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…

One of the defining and distinguishing features of arbitration is the privacy that it affords parties. However, as all practitioners recognize, arbitration is rarely conducted in full secrecy and applications to vacate or confirm an award can bring the existence, subject matter, and outcome of an arbitration to the forefront of public discourse. Often times,…

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…

Although Turkey has ratified the ICSID Convention as early as in 1988, it was not until the recent decade that its domestic law recognized the possibility to resort to arbitration against the State. Until 2000s, disputes arising between a public authority and a private party were to be resolved in an appeal to administrative courts…

By Jawad Ahmad1)Jawad Ahmad is an Associate (Foreign Lawyer) at Rajah & Tann’s International Arbitration and Construction Practice in Singapore. LLB in European Legal Studies (Kent) (First Class Hons.); LLM (UC Berkeley). Attorney-at-law (New York). and Paul Tan2)Paul Tan is a Partner at Rajah & Tann’s International Arbitration and Construction Practice in Singapore. LLB (NUS)…

Co-authored by Georg von Segesser, Benjamin Moss and Aileen Truttmann, Schellenberg Wittmer An arbitral tribunal’s relationship to state courts remains a complex and often contested topic. A particularly interesting question in this regard is whether a party to arbitral proceedings should be able to seek recovery of damages it was ordered to pay in state…

An English court recently ruled on important questions relating to arbitration due process. In Interprods Ltd v De La Rue International Ltd, [2014] EWHC 68 (Comm), the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court dismissed an application to annul an arbitral award rendered by a sole arbitrator sitting in London. The circumstances that gave rise…

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…

Recent posts suggest that “double hats” – practitioners who also act as arbitrators – have finally taken interest in the role of a tribunal secretary. Several years ago it would have been unthinkable for partners in major law firms to spend their time concerning themselves with what the tribunal secretary does, let alone post Kluwer…

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…

Between February and March 2014, the Survey on the Use of Soft Law Instruments in International Arbitration was open for responses here at Kluwer Arbitration Blog. The users were asked to report on their real-live encounters with the following instruments and notions: IBA Rules on the Taking of Evidence, IBA Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest,…

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…

Arbitration, or tahkim, has long-standing religious and cultural roots in the Middle East. However, there are also a number of differences and tensions between the Western perception of arbitration and certain Islamic legal principles and traditions which form the cornerstone of many Middle Eastern States. As the Middle East becomes more prominent in the global…

A recent amendment to Dubai Law No. (9) of 2004 Concerning the Dubai International Financial Centre (as previously amended by Dubai Law No. (14) of 2011), referred to as Dubai Law No. (7) of 2014 (Amending Law No. (9) of 2004 Concerning the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC)) and issued by the Ruler of Dubai…

Uniform jurisprudence on Sovereign immunity still seems a long distance away in international sphere for the reason that the national laws and approaches adopted by the States govern this issue. There have been attempts in the past to somehow streamline the approach by adopting legislations and, in a broader sense, by bringing a multilateral treaty….

Every now and then the arbitration society witnesses the filing of investor-state disputes in fields previously ‘unharmed’ by the spotlight of investment adjudication. Perhaps the most recent example is the ‘hydraulically fractured’ shale gas dispute against Canada (see Lone Pine v. Canada). In a similar manner, the Vattenfall II dispute over Germany’s nuclear phase-out has…

Assignment of benefits of arbitral awards is a standard business practice worldwide, undertaken by companies involved in international trade and supported by credit insurers. However, this practice may face some obstacles in Ukraine considering contradictory and poorly developed court practice of granting leave for enforcement upon an application submitted by any person other than a…

The Indian arbitration regime has seen a sea change in the last couple of years. Before the decision of the Indian Supreme Court (“SC”) in BALCO v. Kaiser Aluminium [Civ. App. No. 7019 of 2005] in 2012, the Indian judiciary was considered highly interventionist in its approach to arbitration. The reason for this was a…

and Meng Li, AnJie Law Firm For the last ten years, whether an arbitration clause such as “any disputes arising from, or in connection with, the execution of this agreement shall be resolved by arbitration” may be applied to an infringement claim has been a topic of heated discussion among the legal practitioners in China….

By Daniella Strik and Marc Krestin, Linklaters LLP The legislative proposal to modernise Dutch arbitration law has been unanimously adopted by the Senate of the Dutch Parliament today. For an informal English translation of the new law, please see here. A comparison between the new law and the 1986 Dutch arbitration law can also be…

By Manuela Caccialanza and Alessandro Villani, Linklaters LLP Another chapter of the never-ending West Tankers saga has recently concluded, seemingly scoring a success as to protection of a party’s right to arbitrate. On 4 April 2012 the High Court of Justice determined the appeal brought by West Tankers against the arbitration award that had denied…