January 28, 2011 – violent protests rocked Egypt; February 2, 2011 – political anxiety and ongoing unrest in Egypt threaten to shake other economies; February 11, 2011 – Mubarak resigned. March 22, 2011 – fire at Egypt interior ministry; April 17, 2011 – ex-ministers to be tried. Recently, a significant amount of unrest has occurred…
The aftermath of the Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy saw more than 20,000 retail investors in Hong Kong suffer losses from investments in structured products. This gave rise to political pressure on the Hong Kong Government to review its financial regulatory system and to step up its investor protection mechanisms. As one of the key outcomes of…
The International Chamber of Commerce Court of Arbitration (the ICC) is the largest arbitral institute. In addition, its Rules of Arbitration (the Rules) greatly influence the practice of arbitration, resulting in several commentaries. Over the course of 2011, these Rules are continuing to undergo revision and changes to continue to reflect current practices and trends…
In recent years, an increasing number of parties to arbitration clauses providing for CIETAC arbitration in mainland China have chosen to take advantage of Article 4.2 of the CIETAC Rules, which allows parties to adopt “other arbitration rules” as the applicable rules of the arbitration. The underlying reason for this trend is simple: Article 4.2…
On December 1, 2010, an ICSID tribunal composed of Sir Franklin Berman (President), Prof. Emmanuel Gaillard, and J. Christopher Thomas, QC, in Global Trading Resource Corp. and Globex International, Inc. v. Ukraine [Disclosure: White & Case LLP was counsel to Ukraine in this case], became the first tribunal ever to dismiss a case under the…
Another arbitral center may be opening its doors soon, but this one intends to be global and to focus exclusively on complex financial disputes, including the over-the-counter derivatives market. The World Legal Forum, a non-profit organization located in The Netherlands worked with varying other groups to create this idea. On October 25, 2010, at the…
Amongst the many issues raised by the now famous Tecnimont case, which we analyzed in our 19 May 2009 blog , was the relevance in setting aside proceedings of institutional rules relating to challenges. The ICC partial award had been quashed by a 12 February 2009 judgment of the Court of Appeal of Paris, because…
A recent discussion on the OGEMID list about “elite arbitrators” prompted one participant to humorously compare the discussion to the frequent flier programs of airlines. This led to some fanciful speculation by in-house counsel of arbitration institutions offering their own loyalty programs, awarding us with “Frequent Arbitrating” points. For example, would there be free “upgrades”…
In his April 2010 inaugural lecture as holder of the Michael R. Klein’s Chair at the Miami University, Jan Paulsson advocated a fundamental change in the culture and practice of international commercial arbitration (Moral Hazard in International Arbitration, Miami, 29 April 2010, see also on this blog). In a nutshell, his views can be summarized…
The recent publication of the LCIA India Arbitration Rules (the ‘Rules’) has sparked a fair amount of discussion and interest, not in small measure owing to the fact that this is the first instance when an international arbitral institution has published a set of arbitration rules tailored for the Indian scenario. One of the ways…
Last month a number of noteworthy arbitration-related developments took place in Moscow. Firstly, the international conference “Commercial Arbitration in Russia, Sweden and the UK: New Business Opportunities”, was held on 9-10 June at the Congress Center of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The conference was jointly organized by the Center of Arbitration and…
I recently spoke at a conference co-sponsored by the Milan Chamber of Arbitration and the ICC on the occasion of the publication of the new Italian arbitration treatise entitled Commentario Breve al Diritto Dell’Arbitrato Nazionale ed Internazionale (CEDAM 2010) by my colleague Massimo Benedettelli, along with co-authors Claudio Consolo and Luca Radicati di Brozolo. The…
As is well known, Section 1782(a) provides that a “the district court of the district in which a person resides or is found may order him to give his testimony or statement or to produce a document or other thing for use in a proceeding in a foreign or international tribunal”. The applicability of 28…
The United States’ Supreme Court opinion in Stolt-Nielsen S.A. v. Animalfeeds International Corp. has already been the focus of much discussion in both U.S. and international arbitration circles. One area of interest for arbitration practitioners is the impact which the decision may or should have on how drafters of arbitration clauses should address the issue…
The Court of Appeals for the state of Bahia in Brazil recently handed down an arbitration-friendly decision and vacated an injunction intended to stay an arbitration proceeding. In FAT Ferroatlàntica S.L. vs. Zeus Mineração Ltda. and others, the Court of Appeals addressed the issue of whether the existence of conflicting arbitration clauses in contracts pertaining to a single economic transaction justifies judicial intervention at the outset of the arbitration. The Court of Appeals held that, provided an arbitration agreement exists, such issue is to be dealt with by the arbitrators, not by the Courts.
When it comes time to identify an arbitrator candidate, be it in the investor-state context or in an international commercial arbitration, there are many factors to consider. One such factor, however, that has been the focus of much attention recently by arbitration institutions, practitioners and commentators alike, is arbitrator availability. It is clearly a sore…
It was a deliberate decision of the Abu Dhabi Commercial Conciliation and Arbitration Centre (ADCCAC) to include both the term and procedures for “conciliation” in their rules. Representatives of ADCCAC regularly comment to the effect that they see it as one function of a dispute resolution body to offer to the disputants a pre –…
The most commonly used form of construction contract in the Gulf is the FIDIC form. Although the FIDIC forms, for project procurement and consultantcy services, progressed slowly over the years, culminating in the burst of colours in the suite of contracts issued in 1999, some parts of the Middle East still use the 1987 (Red…
In its first newsletter of the year 2010, the Swiss Chambers’ Court of Arbitration and Mediation was able to announce a high increase in arbitration cases submitted to the Court under the Swiss Rules of International Arbitration. A total of 104 new arbitration cases was submitted in 2009, an increase of more than fifty percent…
Procedural Order No. 3 (Confidentiality Order) dated 27 January 2010 in Giovanna a Beccara and others v. The Argentine Republic (the “Order”) addresses the competing considerations of confidentiality, transparency, public information, equality of the Parties’ rights, and orderly conduct of the proceedings in investment treaty arbitration. Although the Tribunal’s Order provides a nuanced approach to…
International claims settlement involves a number of challenges that are relevant for the international arbitration community, including fact-finding and burden of proof, principles of State responsibility, treaty interpretation and damages under international law. One recent development of note involves Israel’s recent settlement of a claim brought by the United Nations. In July 2009, the United…
ICSID has just published a report on its caseload, and there is plenty of interesting data. The one that particularly caught my attention is the chart on the basis of consent invoked to establish ICSID jurisdiction. Sixty-two percent of all cases came from Bilateral Investment Treaties, while twenty-two percent came from investment contracts. An additional…
In my last post I questioned whether investor misconduct (such as fraud, illegality and corruption) is invariably a jurisdictional issue. This post focuses on the use of admissibility as a filtering mechanism to screen investor claims. Although it has been suggested by at least one investment treaty tribunal that the concept of admissibility does not…
When mapping the present trajectory of investment treaties, common themes include the “rebalancing” or “recalibration” of substantive disciplines, concepts that signal a retreat from the high-water mark of investor protection and a reorientation towards the preservation of regulatory space for host states. Generally, this phenomenon takes two forms: preparation of new model treaties (the prospective…
