The Vienna International Arbitration Centre turns 40 today. VIAC was created four decades ago to serve the needs of users engaged in commerce between East and West countries. Parties were facing the problem of arbitration clauses that were defective because they relied on the background of their countries, and were not enforceable for purposes of…
Dear Readers, you may have noticed the dearth of recent posts, for which we make no excuses. It is late summer for the northern hemisphere contributors. At this point, most of us are lingering poolside at the Kluwer International Arbitration Resort and Amusement Park, sipping procedural cocktails in the waning light as the children take…
Vienna can be a confounding place for an outsider. In one moment, the city projects itself confidently into an innovative, international future and yet in the next moment can appear irrevocably bound to traditions. Being forward-minded in dispute resolution, Vienna is host this week to the IBA-VIAC International Mediation and Negotiation Competition, a four-day event…
In April 1976, an event now known as the Pound Conference ignited modern ADR in the USA, launching discussion of what may have become the “greatest reform in the history of the country’s judicial system”.1 Forty years later, all stakeholders in the dispute prevention and resolution fields around the world are being invited to participate…
Time Sensitive Over the next two weeks, two surveys will be gathering input from dispute resolution professionals on the challenge of enforcing settlement agreements across borders. The surveys are intended to provide empirical data to aid the decision making process for the proposed UNCITRAL convention on the international enforcement of settlements reached in mediation. IMI…
With hopes that those in the northern hemisphere had a fun summer packed with arbitration-related events for themselves and their families, below are the answers to this year’s summer quiz. The answer keys to the crossword and the word hunt were published in August. While a Ph.d is not required to read the Kluwer arbitration…
Below are the answer keys to the international arbitration word search and crossword puzzle that accompanied the August 14, 2014 post Summer Arbitration Quiz 2014. The answers to the quiz itself will be posted in early September. Reminder: the first person to submit correct answers to the Summer Arbitration Quiz (or the one who comes…
Mid-August is that time in the northern hemisphere when absence from their cases makes vacationing arbitration professionals fidget at the beach or in the mountains. What to do after you have breezed through volume VII of Gary Born’s salacious yet authoritative “50 Shades of Arbitration Procedure”, discovered hundreds of folding patterns in the ICDR arbitration…
Arbitration service providers often seem to handle parties, especially in-house counsel, with gentle kid gloves. A good example is any “roundtable of in-house counsel”, which is now as common at arbitration conferences as children’s tables are at weddings. Just like at weddings, the adults occasionally wander over to check on things and ask, “did you…
In a case my business had a few years ago, the parties’ contract specified expedited procedures under the AAA’s Commercial Arbitration Rules. Immediately after the request for arbitration had been filed, the case manager of the ICDR, the AAA’s international branch, sent the parties a letter to warn us about this.(1) She pointed out that…
UNCITRAL’s Working Group II (Arbitration and Conciliation) will begin its 47th session today, July 7 , in New York. Among the items to be discussed is a proposal for a multilateral convention on the enforceability of international commercial settlement agreements reached through mediation. (See also this link.) The proposal, which has been put forth by…
Critical negotiation moments punctuate the entire timeline of an international arbitration, from before it starts to even after it is over. And when these moments arise, a practitioner’s ability to negotiate effectively can sometimes be as important as their mastery of the subject matter. After all, what use is technical skill if you cannot deploy…
This is a response to yesterday’s post by Duarte Gorjão Henriques, “Incorporating IBA Guidelines Into A ‘Code of Ethics’: A Step Too Far?” My unambiguous answer to his title question is “right direction, not far enough!”. My response is from the perspective of an in-house counsel involved in negotiating dispute clauses in cross-border contracts. Henriques,…
This morning, a colleague in Asia forwarded me an article with news of the latest efforts by Singapore to establish itself as a preferred location for international dispute resolution: an ambitious initiative by the country’s Law Ministry to make Singapore a regional destination for international commercial mediation, and plans to create a Singapore International Commercial…
“The Gang of Four” (and I’m not making this up) is the name taken by four of Europe’s leading arbitration institutions to describe their loose affiliation for discussing common issues and sharing best practices. The “Gang” consists of the German Institution of Arbitration (DIS), the Milan Chamber of Arbitration, the Arbitration Institution of the Stockholm…
Improving the search for information about arbitrators Last week I received an invite to a summer gathering organized by English mediator, David Richbell. One of the events is “Speed dating: Senior mediators including, amongst others, Michel Kallipetis, Liz Birch, Nicholas Pryor available for ten-minute personal interview.” Imagine how such an innovative method for choosing an…
Construction work at the Florence Chamber of Commerce has forced the city’s arbitration and mediation services to relocate to new offices the city was able to scrounge up. This is the view from the fourth-floor conference room assigned to a mediation I attended yesterday. Talk about coping well in the face of adversity… Throughout many…
Arbitral institutions must feel at times like the psychiatrist in the joke from Annie Hall: A man goes to a psychiatrist and says, “my brother has a real problem. He thinks he’s a chicken.” The psychiatrist raises an eyebrow and says, “I see. Have you tried telling him that he isn’t a chicken?” The man…
The new international survey on arbitral practices has just been released. Now in its fourth iteration, the survey has come a long way since its inception in 2006 at the School of International Arbitration of Queen Mary, University of London. While the first three surveys purported to measure in-house counsel attitudes about arbitration and the…
LONDON OLYMPICS, August 1, 2012 — Badminton officials took the extraordinary step today of tossing out four teams for deliberately trying to lose their preliminary matches. The eight disciplined players were found to have conducted themselves “in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport.” Imagine immediate (and less severe) consequences for…
Here are some recent issues colleagues or acquaintences tell me they are facing with international arbitration, without (or with slightly altered) information that might identify a particular proceeding or party. My own comments follow each. I invite readers to amplify with their own views on how to handle these situations, or compare with issues they…
This is the time of year when law students and young lawyers begin to apply for their summer internships or jobs in international dispute resolution. Many – probably most – will carefully draft their curriculum vitae to show their serious commitment to relevant academic studies, experience in international disputes or with law firms, and participation…
Conventional wisdom holds that one of the virtues of international arbitration is the ability to blend divergent procedures, generally referring to civil and common law traditions. The IBA Rules of Evidence, for example, seek to strike a balance among different legal cultures. “Harmonization” and “flexibility” are the terms commonly used to refer to this mixing…
Even when I think I know what I’m doing (be it self-confidence or self-deception), I still find checklists can be useful. Sometimes they can help validate or compare processes with others, but mostly they are good at making sure I haven’t forgotten some critical step. Below is a checklist for when someone – a business…
