After the US election, it was a certainty that in my inbox every morning there was at least one, if not more, email with a discussion on the future of arbitration in our changing society today. And this debate has continued in halls of university law schools to GAR events to law firm seminars. I…
The long-yearned for reform of the Arbitration Act has finally gotten off the starting block. An ad hoc commission has submitted its reform proposal (Proposal), to the scrutiny of the Ministry of Justice (for the full text of the Proposal see here; see also Guido Alpa et al., Un progetto di riforma delle ADR, Jovene,…
Last year I posted on the New Zealand High Court’s decision in Ngāti Hurungaterangi & Ors v Ngāti Wahiao [2016] NZHC 1486. The High Court rejected the plaintiffs’ claim that an arbitral award was inadequately reasoned and should be set aside. The Court described the panel’s reasoning as “undeniably sparse” but held by a “fine…
Cryptocurrency is a term that is becoming increasingly familiar. But how many of us have considered its implications for the world we live in—let alone for the practice of international arbitration? Cryptocurrencies—essentially digital cash—and the blockchain technology on which they are built, have the potential to revolutionise the way funds are raised, traded and stored….
The international economic order is today bound together through a network of bilateral (and multilateral) investment treaties which provide investors with a variety of protections. Such Bilateral investment treaties (“BITs”) are a relatively young species dating back to 1959’s Pakistan-Federal Republic of Germany BIT. While the exact content of BITs varies by agreement, most contain…
Overview In 2015, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria highlighted the importance of positioning Australia as one of the next significant regional commercial hubs. Her Honour reiterated this position in a 2017 speech. Interestingly, similar, yet more subtle, comments were featured in a speech in 2009. Other Australian courts have made similar…
A recently released study on technology sector dispute resolution highlights significant distinctions in the sector’s perceptions of US domestic and international arbitration. The study conducted by the Silicon Valley Arbitration & Mediation Center (SVAMC), a non-profit educational foundation based in Palo Alto, California, was directed to understanding technology sector views regarding litigation and arbitration. The…
White & Case LLP and the School of International Arbitration at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) are partnering once again to carry out cutting-edge empirical research in the field of international arbitration, with the launch of the 2018 International Arbitration Survey. International arbitration is the natural choice for resolving business disputes because it is…
When ABBA launched “The Winner Takes It All” in 1980, modern arbitration was still in its infancy. The ICC case numbers were just about to become four-digit, while the cases administered by ICSID could still be counted on two hands. Yet already at that time, “The Winner Takes It All” exemplified one of the two…
The latest large consumer data breach, this time involving Equifax, has also shed a sharp light on an ongoing controversy about consumers’ access to justice. In taking steps to ameliorate its PR crisis, Equifax found itself right in the middle of the dispute about class actions and arbitration clauses. On September 7, Equifax revealed that…
Gretta Walters is an Associate at Chaffetz Lindsey LLP in New York, where she represents individual and corporate clients in international and cross-border disputes in arbitration and in state and federal court. She has experience in arbitral proceedings under the arbitration rules of the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC),…
Non-arbitrability of disputes is a ground for setting aside the arbitral awards under Sections 34(2)(b) and 48(2) of the Arbitration and Conciliation act 1996 (the “Act”), the award is against the public policy of India. Arbitrability, here, refers to the objective arbitrability of the disputes, i.e., whether the national law imposes any restriction on the…
This post critically examines the recent Supreme Court judgment in TRF Limited vs. Energo Engineering Private Limited where the court held that a person who is ineligible to be appointed as an arbitrator cannot even nominate an arbitrator. This judgment was in the context of a unilateral arbitration clause (“unilateral clause”) in which one party…
This is the final one in sequel of four parts on the status of the DIFC Courts as a conduit jurisdiction. It reports on a further number of recent decisions of the Dubai-DIFC Judicial Committee – also known as the Judicial Tribunal or in shorthand the JT – that question the DIFC Courts’ role as…
The Hungarian Parliament has recently adopted a new Act on Arbitration, which will enter into force on 1 January 2018 (the Act). The new Act (based on the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration as amended in 2006 (the Model Law)) implements changes that are likely to have a considerable impact on the Hungarian…
Recent political developments have resulted in considerable geopolitical uncertainty and presented challenges to the international order. With the UK’s vote to exit the European Union, the election of Donald Trump as US president, the Western sanctions against Russia, and the rising North Korea nuclear tensions, 2017 ushers in a turbulent time where commercial parties’ usual…
In the 2000s, mortgages in Swiss Franc (CHF) were very popular among consumers in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe for the acquisition of both private and commercial properties, as the CHF was a stable and reliable currency and offered lower interest rates than loans in Euro or in local currencies. When on 15 January 2015…
Cybersecurity bears particular significance to the realm of international arbitration. In addition to the ambient cybersecurity risks faced by each participant in international arbitral proceedings, the need to share information between the parties, the tribunal and the institution for the resolution of a dispute increases the likelihood that data will be lost or breached. Arbitral…
Over the last few years, legitimacy has become a hot topic in international arbitration. Although the investment regime has borne the brunt of the attack, commercial proceedings have also suffered from criticism. The range of voices questioning the propriety of arbitration has been at times quite diverse and has included journalists, judges, governments and human…
With Manuel Castelo-Branco, Carlos Aguiar, Francisco Prol, Paula Costa e Silva, Carlos Alberto Carmona, Duarte G. Henriques, Sofia Vale, João Ribeiro-Bidaoui, and João Vilhena Valério The massive programme of investments that will take place under the “One Belt, one Road” (OBOR) initiative of the People’s Republic of China leaves no one indifferent. With the aim…
Since the first application for provisional measures suspending criminal proceedings in Tokios Tokelés v. Ukraine (ICSID Case No. ARB/02/18, Order No. 3, 18 January 2005), the number of applications before ICSID tribunals for these types of measures has steadily increased. Recent applications have been widely commented on in the arbitration community, including in this blog….
Introduction It is not unusual that parties to FAI arbitration proceedings raise various jurisdictional objections before the Finland Arbitration Institute (“FAI”) and, provided that FAI will nonetheless allow the arbitration to proceed, subsequently also before the arbitral tribunal. Such objections come in all shapes and sizes. For example, respondent may dispute the existence of an…
For many doing business in Serbia, the local legal framework, including for arbitration, is the great unknown. However, a short introduction to this legal culture should suffice to reveal that when it comes to arbitration-related matters, Serbian laws are not so different from those in countries hosting some of the most popular arbitral seats. In…
The 29th Annual Workshop of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration (“ITA”), which took place on 14-15 June 2017 in Dallas, focused on a timely subject of much importance to the future of international arbitration, namely, the “Challenges to the Legitimacy of International Arbitration.” The event was co-chaired by Caline Mouawad (King & Spalding), Jeremy K….
