At the beginning of April, the Brazilian Senate established a Committee for the modification of the Brazilian Arbitration Law – Law no. 9.307 of September 1996. The president of the Committee, Luís Felipe Salomão, believes that the new amendments will strengthen arbitration, as an alternative dispute resolution mechanism. Salomão suggests that the goal of these…
and Thomas Baconin, Orange, trainee in International Expertise & Conflict Resolution, Litigation, CSR & Real Estate On the 15th of April in the prestigious venue of the Hotel de Ville in Paris, the non-profit organization Paris Place d’Arbitrage introduced its new ad hoc “Paris Arbitration Rules”, in front of 200 law practitioners from the arbitration…
A brief history Arbitration has been a part of the laws of El Salvador for more than a hundred years. The Constitution of 1983 clearly states in Article 23 that every citizen of the country has the right to terminate his or her civil or commercial matters through arbitration. July 2002 marked a dramatic change…
A legislative proposal to modernize Dutch arbitration law has been submitted to Dutch parliament on 16 April 2013. For an informal English translation of a comparison between the legislative proposal with the current Dutch arbitration law, see here. It is anticipated that the Second Chamber of Dutch Parliament will submit a report on the proposal…
by Justin D’Agostino and Briana Young On 28 March 2013, Hong Kong gazetted The Arbitration (Amendment) Bill 2013. The Bill proposes amendments to Hong Kong’s Arbitration Ordinance (Cap. 609) to implement an arrangement for mutual enforcement of awards between Hong Kong and Macao, allow for enforcement of emergency arbitrator decisions in Hong Kong, and provide…
At a conference a few years back, a well-known and respected arbitrator was speaking on the topic of predictability and consistency of arbitral decision making in investment treaty arbitration. The arbitrator asked whether arbitrators should fly solo or in flocks. He made a strong and persuasive case for the independence of the arbitrator, to fly…
The U.S. Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) provides that a federal district court may vacate an arbitration award, among other reasons, “where there was evident partiality or corruption in the arbitrators.” 9 U.S.C. §10(a). However, as illustrated by a recently decided case in the Southern District of New York, U.S. district courts apply different standards of…
and Matthew Lee* Introduction Last Wednesday, the international arbitration community in Australia won a significant victory. Indeed, in TCL Air Conditioner (Zhongshan) Co Ltd v The Judges of the Federal Court of Australia [2013] HCA 5 (13 March 2013), S178/2012, the Australian High Court (“Court”) dismissed a challenge to the constitutionality of the International Arbitration…
The ICC Institute of World Business Law has launched the 2013 edition of the Institute Prize for dissertations and essays on international commercial law, including arbitration, for anyone under the age of 40. The Prize of 10,000 Euro is awarded by a jury consisting of members of the ICC Institute Council. Essays and doctoral dissertations…
A new study of dispute resolution practices in Fortune 1,000 corporations shows that many large companies are using binding arbitration less often and relying more on mediated negotiation and other approaches aimed at resolving disputes informally, quickly and inexpensively. The 2011 survey of corporate counsel developed by researchers at Cornell University’s Scheinman Institute on Conflict…
The recent Portuguese Voluntary Arbitration Law, which has been in force since 14 March 2012, (English version available here), was received with great enthusiasm amongst the legal community, which claimed for a new arbitration law that could bring to Portugal a regulatory framework closer to the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration. The goal…
Over the past decade, Africa has emerged as a leading center of economic growth. From mining and manufacturing, to banking and telecoms, nearly every industry is witnessing rapid expansion in Africa, driven by both African enterprises and businesses from around the world. Naturally, an increase in international commerce has resulted in an attendant increase in…
The vexed question of the arbitrability vel non of competition law has now reached the shores of the United Arab Emirates. Readers will, of course, be aware that this question has been answered in the affirmative – and most will agree rightly so – in the world’s leading arbitration jurisdictions, in particular in Europe and…
and Stanka Cherkezova With the finals of the Philip C. Jessup and Willem C. Vis Moot approaching it is a good time to spend a few words on oral advocacy and persuasion which are indispensable to moot-courting and real life career as well. A judge from the International Court of Justice once said that he…
If the answer is London, Paris, Geneva, New York, Tokyo and Singapore, what is the question? International cities? Fashion hot spots? Location of Manchester United supporters’ clubs? It may well be the answer to all three questions (although I confess that I have not actually checked the Manchester United one), but they are also the…
In International Research Corp PLC v Lufthansa Systems Asia Pacific Pte Ltd [2012] SGHC 226 (per Chan Seng Onn J) (“International Research”), the Singapore High Court addressed the issue of whether an arbitration clause contained in one contract between two parties binds a third party who subsequently enters into a supplemental agreement with the original…
As its Council Member I attended the ICC Institute of World Business Law’s 32nd annual meeting on ‘Third-Party Funding in International Arbitration’ held in Paris on 26 November 2012. It was a grand success as it drew many professionals, arbitrators, experts, academic specialists and, above all, representatives from some major third-party funding bodies such as…
Arbitration is underpinned by natural justice. Article 18 of the Model Law, enshrining the right of the parties to be treated with equality, and given a full opportunity to present their case, was described by UNCITRAL in 1985 as the “Magna Carta of Arbitral Procedure”. Yet the Model Law does not in Articles 34 and…
By Tai-Heng Cheng* & Lucas Bento** Introduction On October 5th, 2012, a split ICSID tribunal determined that the Republic of Ecuador had breached the US-Ecuador bilateral investment treaty (“BIT”), and awarded damages of US$1.77 billion (US$2.3 billion with interest applied), reportedly the largest award ever to have been issued by an ICSID tribunal. This award…
There are many clients who are often engaged in industrious works that result in disputes. Typically, the applicable arbitral agreements requirement submitting claims to international arbitration and, in this author’s opinion, appropriately so. However, these same clients may also be subject to frequent claim assertions that lack any true merit. Despite this, there is not…
On 14 October 2012, Justice David Williams of the DIFC Court of First Instance (Dubai International Financial Centre) applied a course correction by issuing a decision confirming the jurisdiction of the DIFC Courts to grant a stay in the presence of a valid arbitration agreement providing for a seat of arbitration outside the DIFC. Justice…
A few months ago I wrote a post on this Blog about what I saw as “work left to do” in the Spanish arbitration system. I started with the need to build a regional court of arbitration on a par with those well-known centres in other jurisdictions, with the fundamental aim of taking advantage of…
In its important 2011 decision AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, the United States Supreme Court sharply limited the grounds on which a court may invalidate an arbitration agreement. A recent ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, In re Checking Account Overdraft Litigation MDL No. 2036, illustrates how lower courts are…
In a recently published decision dated 6 August 2012 (4A_119/2012), the Swiss Federal Supreme Court confirmed its own jurisprudence according to which state courts facing a jurisdictional defense based on an alleged arbitration agreement must not assess in full the validity of the arbitration agreement. In such cases, the state court must limit itself to a summary examination of whether or not a valid arbitration agreement exists.
