There has been a lot of debate in recent years on whether attorneys’ fees, or in other words counsels’ fees, can be awarded under the applicable laws in the United Arab Emirates (“UAE”). This post examines a recent decision, Cassation No. 990/2019 Commercial, issued by the Dubai Court which deals with attorneys’ fees. Prior court…
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…
Two initiatives concerning arbitration costs have filled a few column inches over the past several months. The first of these is a fairly straightforward cost-cutting initiative with immediate tangible benefits, while the second is likely to be something of a slow burner. Starting with the first, more simple example, the American Arbitration Association (‘AAA’) has…
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…
Helsinki International Arbitration Day (HIAD) is an annual arbitration conference organized by the Arbitration Institute of the Finland Chamber of Commerce (FAI). It was held for the sixth time in Helsinki on 18 May 2017. Is There a Simple Solution to Arbitration Costs Allocation? The afternoon of the conference was dedicated to the topic of…
Helsinki International Arbitration Day (HIAD) is an annual arbitration conference organized by the Arbitration Institute of the Finland Chamber of Commerce (FAI). It was held for the sixth time in Helsinki on 18 May 2017. This year, the event was organized with the support of the ICC International Court of Arbitration and the ICC Finland,…
SIAC released new rules of procedure (“SIAC Rules”) for the management of its arbitration practice, effective 1 August, 2016. Some of the new provisions are ground-breaking. New provisions include a consolidation procedure, a joinder procedure, and even rules providing for early dismissal of baseless claims. The SIAC Rules have drawn great attention to its numerous…
Security for costs, a measure which is perceived as a savior for those who are forced to arbitrate with (allegedly) impecunious parties, can have several connections with the industry of third party funding. Third party funding, as a new trend in international arbitration, has certainly disturbed many waters, including those related to security for costs….
When allocating costs, investment arbitration tribunals apply two principles: a “pay your own way” principle which provides that each party pays its own legal costs and they effectively share the costs of the proceedings, and secondly a “costs follow the event” or “loser pays” principle which provides that the losing party bears the costs of…
This was the title of one of four sessions comprising the dispute resolution module held as part of the fifth Institute for Energy Law (IEL) and IBA Section on Energy, Environment, Natural Resources and Infrastructure Law (SEERIL) International Oil and Gas conference, which took place in London on 3-5 June 2015. The dispute resolution module…
