On 7 November 2024, the SCC Arbitration Institute (“SCC”) hosted a discussion on security for costs in international arbitration, with Anna Joubin-Bret, Secretary of UNCITRAL; Dr. Faris Nasrallah, Head of Arbitration at Crescent Petroleum; Dr. Monique Sasson, Partner DeliSasson and arbitrator with ARBITRA; Jake Lowther, Specialist Counsel, SCC Arbitration Institute, and moderated by Dr Crina…
On the first day of the 2023 Seoul ADR Festival, Secretariat Advisors hosted a double feature of panels relating to arbitration costs. The first panel focusing on the recovery of arbitration costs featured James Chun (foreign attorney, Kim & Chang), Inkoo Lee (manager, Secretariat), and Bruno Savoie (foreign attorney, City-Yuwa Partners). Messrs. Lee and Savoie…
In a judgment issued by the Dubai Court of Cassation (“COC”) on 8 June 2023 (Dubai Court of Cassation No. 1514/2022 Commercial), the COC confirmed that the condition precedent of referring the dispute to the engineer prior to filing arbitral proceedings is an issue pertaining to admissibility, not jurisdiction. The same judgment also provided insight…
The Delhi High Court has resoundingly acknowledged the viability of third-party funding (“TPF”) in providing access to justice for claimants in arbitrations. In a welcome judgment, the Court ruled that a funder was not liable for an arbitral award and therefore need not furnish security in the enforcement thereof. The Court said the funder could…
The Seoul ADR Festival (“SAF”) 2022, conducted by the Korean Commercial Arbitration Board, was held between 7-11 November 2022. The 11th Asia-Pacific ADR Virtual Conference, the flagship conference of SAF 2022, took place on 9-10 November 2022 and was attended by more than 400 participants. It covered a broad range of topics over four sessions….
Introduction The second day of the Asia ADR Week 2022 kicked off with a panel discussion on Rechartering a Modern Legislative Framework with Mr Abang Iwawan (Abang & Co.) as moderator. Mr Iwawan was joined by Ms Karen Ng Gek Suan (Karen, Mak & Partners), Mr Rajendra Navaratnam (Azman Davidson & Co.), Mr Foo Joon…
A dual webinar series “Do You Know What Your Neighbour is Doing?” (available at links here and here) recently hosted by Dentons provided an overview of how to navigate international arbitration in the United States (“US”) and Canada. The first webinar was moderated by Rachel Howie, FCIArb (Calgary). It featured three panelists who discussed international…
In Singapore, lawyers and their clients will soon be able to enter into conditional fee agreements (“CFAs”) for arbitrations and certain court proceedings. CFAs provide parties with an alternative to traditional fee arrangements and third-party funding (“TPF”) by enabling part or all of their lawyers’ fees and costs, as well as an uplift fee, to…
At present, Hong Kong lawyers are prohibited from charging outcome related fees in arbitration. As discussed in a previous blog, the landscape started to change since the publication of a Consultation Paper by the Outcome Related Fee Structures for Arbitration Sub-committee (the “Sub-committee“) of the Law Reform Commission of Hong Kong (the “Commission“). The Sub-committee…
A party to arbitration proceedings may incur ancillary litigation costs, such as those associated with interim measures. Most academic commentary considering whether such expenditures actually constitute arbitration costs refers to professor Hanotiau, who states that costs related to litigation proceedings ancillary to arbitration do not generally fall under the umbrella of arbitration costs. As such,…
The recent English Commercial Court decision in Tenke Fungurume Mining SA v Katanga Contracting Services SAS [2021] EWHC 3301 (Comm) has provided an interesting further comment on the broad discretion available to tribunals in English-seated arbitrations to award the costs of third party funding as part of costs awards. The decision by Mrs Justice Moulder…
Where a plaintiff unsuccessfully applies to set aside an arbitral award or resist enforcement of the same, should the costs of the application, as a default rule, be awarded to the defendant on a standard or indemnity basis? The recent string of Singapore decisions on BTN v BTP address this question from a Singapore perspective….
Each of the major arbitral institutions requires that parties furnish some form of advance on costs before an arbitration can proceed. The advance on costs is a deposit paid by the parties to cover fees and expenses of the tribunal and the institution’s administrative expenses (“Advance”). Whilst payment of an Advance is often perceived as…
The Summer 2020 Kluwer Arbitration Quiz was met with a very enthusiastic response: 271 submissions from around the world! The quiz focused on how the conduct of arbitrations may differ, depending on industries and regions, as revealed by data collected to date by Arbitrator Intelligence. That data is collected through responses submitted by parties and…
The admissibility of illegal evidence in international commercial arbitration is for sure, at the moment, a widely discussed topic among law students and arbitration lawyers thanks to this year’s problem at the Willem C Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot competition (“Vis Moot Problem”). The Kluwer Arbitration Blog (“KAB”) covered the topic extensively as well in…
This is the 2nd part of the report highlighting the most significant arbitration-related decisions of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court (the “Supreme Court”) published in 2018. Jura Novit Arbiter In the decision 4A_525/2017 of 9 August 2018, published on 26 September 2018, the Supreme Court dealt with the principle of jura novit arbiter, controversial…
Arbitration in the 21st Century requires some bold, fresh thinking. We must seek flexibility and innovation if legal civilization is to survive. 1) Thomas E. Carbonneau, The Law and Practice of United States Arbitration, xxix (6th. ed. 2018) Similarly, when the market speaks strongly, we should listen very carefully. We believe that open and free…
Introduction Despite a rapid emergence at a global stage, third-party funding (TPF) appears yet as unfamiliar to businesses in the Nordic region. According to a survey included in the 2018 edition of the Roschier Disputes Index, merely 5 per cent of the Nordic companies have used TPF for financing litigation or enforcement proceedings. Arguably, these…
On 17 May 2018, the Central European University and Jeantet co-organized a conference to discuss the new Hungarian Arbitration Act (the “New Act”), following the first months of its entry into force on 1 January 2018 (the “Conference”). The Conference was held in Budapest and the organizing committee was composed of Csongor Nagy (CEU, University…
The past few months have witnessed several momentous developments for international arbitration in Africa. Angola, Cabo Verde, and Sudan acceded to the New York Convention; South Africa adopted a new International Arbitration Act; the OHADA Council of Ministers adopted three new texts on arbitration and mediation; and the Nigerian Arbitration and Conciliation Act (Repeal and…
Since their inception in 1975, the Vienna Rules (Rules of Arbitration and Mediation of the Vienna International Arbitral Centre) have undergone a number of major reforms keeping them abreast of the fast-moving tides of legal development in international arbitration. The latest revision of the Rules as from 1 January 2018 (previously covered in this blog)…
Introduction Article 48.1 FAI Rules provides that, in any international arbitration, FAI shall fix an advance on costs which the parties must pay in full before the case file is transmitted to the arbitral tribunal. Like under many other institutional arbitration rules, the starting point under the FAI cost regime is that FAI will fix…
The recent English Commercial Court case of Oldham v QBE Insurance (Europe) Ltd [2017] EWHC 3045 (Comm) (“Oldham v QBE”) serves as a reminder to tribunals that all parties must be given the opportunity of putting their case on costs and responding to the case put to them. In Oldham v QBE, the Commercial Court…
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…
