On 17 December 2015, the website of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) announced that the Arbitral Tribunal in the Philip Morris Asia Limited (Hong Kong) v. The Commonwealth of Australia case has issued an Award on Jurisdiction and Admissibility of the case. While the award has not yet been published – pending the redaction…
An extension of arbitration agreements to non-signatories has been a much discussed topic, also on this blog. Here is an insight from Croatian courts: In a judgment issued on 2 September 2014 (VSRH Revt-321/2013-2), the Croatian Supreme Court [“Court”] set aside an arbitral award rendered by the Permanent Arbitration Court at the Croatian Chamber of…
2015 was an eventful year in Hong Kong arbitration. The Hong-Kong based institutions shepherded through several reforms, the local courts issued several pro-arbitration decisions, and a long-awaited Law Reform Commission paper opened the door to third-party funding for arbitration. Third party funding for arbitration in Hong Kong Readers will be aware of the increasing popularity…
One of the peculiarities of the revised Russian Arbitration Laws of 29 December 2015 (“Laws“), entering into force on 1 September of this year, is an attempt to localize the on-shore settlement of corporate arbitral disputes involving domestic companies. Only an arbitration institution which has adopted, publicized online, and filed special rules for arbitration of…
Since 2011, Myanmar has seen a renewed effort at reforming its political, social and economic landscape. As part of the reforms, on 15 July 2013, Myanmar formally acceded to the New York Convention 1958. Myanmar had however not enacted local legislation or revised its archaic Arbitration Act of 1944 to give effect to its international…
The 3rd Annual Joint Conference on International Energy Arbitration, co-hosted by the Institute for Transnational Arbitration (ITA), the Institute for Energy Law (IEL), and the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), took place on January 14-15, 2016, in Houston, Texas. Under the guidance of conference co-chairs C. Mark Baker (Norton…
Latvian courts annually enforce approximately 1000 arbitral awards. Just a few years ago this number was even higher – reaching 7000 requests in 2004 (statistics of the Court Information System available here) – since also consumer disputes could have been submitted to arbitration, as non-negotiated arbitration clauses were not presumed to be unfair and thus…
The Indian Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (“Act”) makes it clear that an arbitration between an Indian and a foreign party can be governed by foreign law and can have a foreign seat. This is defined as ‘international commercial arbitration’ under the Act. However, whether two Indian parties can agree to a foreign seat for…
The legal consequences of a breach of a contract tainted by corruption are better understood through a hypothetical: Contractor A of country X enters into negotiations with B, the Minister of Economics and Development of country Y, with a view to concluding an agreement on a large infrastructure project (“the Contract”). B requests the payment…
and Duarte G. Henriques, BCH Lawyers 1. Until very recently the swaps industry seemed to be reluctant to use alternative dispute resolution or at least was very indifferent as to the choice of the dispute resolution mechanism, with disputes almost always being left for the courts of either London or New York to decide, these…
“A course in international arbitration that does not cover the Libya oil arbitration cases of the 1970s would probably be considered incomplete by most standards.” (Arbitration in Asia and Africa: Profiles of Selected Arbitral Institutions, Won Kidane, China-Africa Dispute Settlement: The Law, Economics and Culture of Arbitration, International Arbitration Law Library, Volume 23, p.367) This…
2015 has witnessed numerous interesting legal developments in the field of international arbitration in Latin America, although these have been wide-ranging in nature and have not always followed the same path. While some jurisdictions have taken legislative steps to introduce or consolidate pro-arbitration legislation in accordance with internationally accepted standards, others, perhaps influenced by negative…
In some legal systems, a shareholder of a company may act for the company in certain circumstances. When a shareholder is permitted to do so, questions may arise whether the shareholder may invoke (and is bound by) an arbitration clause in the contract. The arbitrability of derivative shareholders’ actions is largely unclear in comparative legal…
For the last several years, Russia has undergone arbitration reform initiated by the President in or around 2013. The reform is aimed at increasing the credibility of this dispute resolution mechanism in Russia and updating the framework regulating domestic and international arbitration by addressing many long known gaps. The latest development occurred on 29 December…
by Maria Laura Marceddu, School of Law, King’s College London Over the last years, as discussed on this blog (see here), there have been many interesting developments in the field of transparency in investor-State arbitration: the 2006 ICSID amendments, the 2013 UNCITRAL Rules on Transparency in Treaty-based Investor-State Arbitration (“the 2013 UNCITRAL Rules”) (see here), and…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
In the landscape of international investment arbitration the allegations of corruption have become more and more common. Confronted with investor’s claims before an arbitral tribunal, host states employ all possible legal arguments available to avoid potential liability and the subsequent payment of compensation. Investor’s corrupt acts have emerged as a potentially viable state defense in…
