The Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice has launched a consultation on the revision of the Dutch 1986 arbitration law. See here. For an informal English translation of a comparison with the current Dutch arbitration law, see here. The consultation will be open until 1 June 2012. It is anticipated that the legislative proposal will…
International arbitration has long played an important role in resolving disputes that arise out of political and economic crises. “Arbitration in Times of Crisis” is the theme of the 9th Annual ITA-ASIL Conference on 28 March 2012 in Washington, D.C. (see program). The conference will focus on lessons from the past use of arbitral mechanisms…
I am frequently approached by young up and coming lawyers who want to break into the international arbitration arena or seasoned veterans seeking to make a transition into this dynamic and culturally diverse legal field. They all have the same questions – how do we truly enter the field? And how can it truly be…
Recent events in Romania have added a new twist to the debate on party-appointed arbitrators after an arbitration institute centralized the power to appoint arbitrators in one person and decided to remunerate the individual. By now, arbitration practitioners should be well aware of the arguments for and against party-appointed arbitrators. There is little to add…
My experience, first hand, from hunting for a third party funder was different than I had anticipated. I have been researching this newer field for some time now and have entered some previous posts which go more into the basics of what it is and how it works. So, I won’t repeat all of those…
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…
A commentary on the OECD Competition Commission conclusions on using arbitration to effectively resolve competition law disputes By Francesca Richmond and Sarah West There has been increasing use of arbitration to resolve disputes involving competition law issues in recent years. However, it is surprising that the number is not even greater given that arbitral processes…
It has become fashionable in recent years, each time an ICSID annulment decision is released that takes issue with the procedures or reasoning of an ICSID tribunal, for commentators to bemoan the lack of certainty, predictability and finality that this reflects in the ICSID system for adjudicating investment treaty disputes between investors and host States….
Following the path of the hotly debated West Tankers decision, in African Fertilizers v BD Shipsnavo, the English Commercial Court held that a declaratory award is enforceable, allowing judgment to be entered on the same terms as the arbitral award. Such an order enables a party to obtain the material benefit of the award and…
This is the second article in a three-part series summarising the main valuation methodologies used for the purposes of determining economic loss. In part one, I provided an overview of the market-approach methodology. I now turn to the income-based approach, focusing on the discounted cash flow (DCF) methodology. In my previous article, I noted that…
Yograj Infrastructure Ltd. Vs. Ssang Yong Engineering and Construction Co. Ltd. (on 1 September 2011) As reported in this blog, in May 2011 the Supreme Court of India (SCI) moderated the controversial principle it established in 2002 that allowed the Indian courts to intervene in arbitrations held outside of India unless that possibility was expressly…
A key part of an expert witness’s role involves explaining, in as clear terms as possible, complex accounting, economic and valuation concepts, to arbitration lawyers who may be less familiar with or even daunted by the world of finance. My suspicion is that expert witnesses could do much more to assist the arbitration community in…
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…
As we approach the first anniversary of the UK Supreme Court’s landmark decision in the case of Dallah Estate and Tourism Holding Company v The Ministry of Religious Affairs, Government of Pakistan, it is only fitting that we would encounter a case which would cause us to revisit the issue of the proper standard of…
In this post, we will first deal briefly with the facts in the case of Jivraj v Hashwani and the findings of the first instance judge and the Court of Appeal, which by now would be very familiar to anyone reading this blog. We will then look at the Supreme Court’s judgment ([2011] UKSC 40),…
I received the following call for papers from our friends at the ITA and thought I would share it with our readers: In collaboration with the Academic Council, the Executive Committee and the Young Arbitrators Initiative of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration (ITA) are proud to announce the creation of a new annual Winter Forum….
In February 2011, the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in Stok & Associates, P.A., v. Citibank, N.A, (No. 10-514). The question presented was whether, under the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”), a party should be “required to demonstrate prejudice after the opposing party waived its contractual right to arbitrate by participating in litigation, in order…
Almost every country of the world has seen an enormous increase in the involvement of the State in economic activity over the past century. This trend is particularly pronounced in those economies, China foremost among them, in which the State takes an active role in commercial life. But can State owned entities and other private…
Videocon Industries Ltd. Vs. Union Of India & Anr. (on 11 May, 2011) The Supreme Court of India (the SCI) recently added to the contentious line of authority beginning with its ruling in Bhatia International v Bulk Trading SA (2002) (4) SCC 105 concerning the power of the Indian courts to intervene in arbitrations held…
Empirical research shows that modern law students, at least at post-graduate level, wish to have some options to learn something about the skills of ‘lawyering’. Students often say that they want to have more than just the letters ‘LLM’ after their names. They pay substantial tuition fees to obtain these post-graduate degrees, and they wish…
In Galsworthy Ltd of the Republic of Liberia v Glory of Wealth Shipping Pte Ltd [2010] SGHC 304 (“Galsworthy”), the Singapore High Court held that a losing party to an arbitration seeking to challenge an arbitral award had the “alternative and not cumulative options” of applying to set aside the award, or, applying to set…
The Supreme Court has arrived at what almost all arbitration practitioners and clients will view as the right result in the strange episode of Jivraj v Hashwani. The Supreme Court has unanimously allowed the appeal on the basis that an arbitrator is not an employee of the parties for the purposes of the Employment Equality…
The scope of Most Favoured Nation (MFN) clauses in bilateral investment treaties (BITs) has been a source of rich debate for many years. In sum, the debate centres around whether MFN “treatment” includes only substantive rules for the protection of investments, or if it also extends to procedural protections such as dispute resolution. There have…
Last week’s summer quiz on international arbitration and mediation provoked a happy flurry of answers from around the world from a broad range of practitioners. Before we get to the answers, here are some interesting observations from the empirical data that we unintentionally gathered. Conclusive Empirical Data about International Arbitration and Mediation Practitioners (“Practitioners”) As…
