On 28 February 2020, two Dutch investors obtained a favourable arbitral award against Spain. The tribunal found that Spain had violated the Energy Charter and ordered Spain to pay damages of EUR 15.4 million to AES Solar Energy Coöperatief U.A. (AES) and EUR 11.1 million to Ampere Equity Fund B.V. (AEF). Despite Spain’s attempts to…
Despite being a relatively young market at just over 20 years old, Brazilian arbitration has experienced rapid growth. As of 2020, Brazil ranked second in the number of arbitrations filed with the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), surpassing all European, African, and Asian jurisdictions. Brazil is also among the top five nationalities represented among arbitrators,…
Despite the good results obtained for several years in its defense from investment arbitration claims, the Republic of Peru has become one of the countries with the highest number of arbitration claims filed against it. To date, nineteen cases have concluded, and twenty-three cases are pending resolution. In December 2022, an award was issued in…
The Panel “The Future of Major Energy Projects Crises, Challenges, and Opportunities” took place on the penultimate day of the London International Disputes Week 2023 (“LIDW 2023”) on 18th May 2023 in the London office of McDermott Will & Emergy with panellist Armando Neris from McDermott Will & Emery, Lucian Ilie from Outer Temple Chambers,…
On 6 January 2023, the Singapore Court of Appeal (the SCA) passed a judgment in Anupam Mittal v Westbridge Ventures II that redefines existing notions of the law applicable to subject matter arbitrability at the pre-award stage (the Westbridge Judgment). The High Court’s decision which was appealed before the SCA is discussed here. National courts…
In an India-seated arbitration, if your contract is unstamped or insufficiently stamped, the Supreme Court of India has now confirmed in its authoritative judgement passed on April 25, 2023, in N N Global Mercantile Private Limited v. Indo Unique Flame Ltd. & Ors. (“NN Global”) that this would be a valid ground to disallow acting…
On 1 May 2023, the Saudi Center for Commercial Arbitration (“SCCA”) introduced its latest edition of the SCCA Rules, following an extensive public consultation process and input from the SCCA Rules Advisory Committee chaired by Richard Naimar and the SCCA’s General Counsel, Christian Alberti. This post provides an overview of the modernizations and innovations reflecting…
In recent years, criticism that international arbitration rules lean too heavily on common law traditions—with similar legal costs as a result—has culminated in the creation of multiple new sets of arbitration rules, each claiming to facilitate more efficient arbitration proceedings through civil law-based case management strategies. Whether those rules actually result in more proactive management…
Indian arbitration landscape continues to evolve and London continues to play an important part in cross-border disputes with a link to India. Anuradha Agnihotri, Devika Khopkar, Arun Mal, and Nicholas Peacock, with Rishab Gupta as moderator, shed light on various aspects of the Indian disputes market during LIDW 2023, including India’s recent move towards liberalization,…
The landscape for Russia-related disputes in London has changed significantly in the last year. The panel of Egishe Dzhazoyan (King & Spalding), Katia Finkel (Baker & McKenzie), Valery Knyazev (Kroll) and Tatiana Minaeva (RPC) moderated by Baiju Vasani (Twenty Essex) discussed shifting trends, challenges arising from international sanctions, enforcement issues, and potential opportunities for dispute…
London International Disputes Week 2023 (“LIDW 2023”) kicked off on 15 May 2023. This year’s theme explores how the disputes community, is and should be, adapting to a changing world. The first day – International Arbitration Day followed the “arbitration disputes sun” across key regions and jurisdictions exploring recent developments and connections of those regions…
London International Disputes Week (LIDW) 2023 main conference addressed various facets of international dispute resolution in a changing world. Looking back to the first edition of LIDW in 2019, when the main concern revolved around Brexit and the consequences of it on London as a leading place of arbitration and international litigation, the following editions…
Fatima, thank you for joining us on the Kluwer Arbitration Blog and congratulations on your recent appointment as Director of SCCA Dubai, as SCCA opens its doors to its first regional office outside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (“KSA”). We are grateful to have the opportunity to share your unique perspective with our readers. Your…
Identifying the law governing the arbitration agreement has increasingly proven to be a complex and confusing process. This is particularly true after the UK Supreme Court’s Enka v. Chubb judgment, which already was the topic of extensive discussion on Kluwer Arbitration Blog (see here, here and here). In spite of being criticised by many scholars…
Much has been written on countermeasures enacted by States against Russia (e.g., here, here, here), but to the extent that States’ measures in response to Russia’s breaches of international law have violated the protections owed to Russian private investors, can States still claim that these measures are lawful countermeasures? And, if and when these Russian…
By the end of April 2023, observers of the ECT modernisation process may have felt as if they were waiting for Godot. The vote on the outcome of the ECT modernisation process, scheduled to take place at an ad hoc meeting of Energy Charter Conference at the end of April 2023, was postponed for the…
The Bar Council of India (“BCI”) recently notified (i.e. entered into effect) the Bar Council of India Rules for Registration and Regulation of Foreign Lawyers or Foreign Law Firms in India, 2022 (“Rules”). It is a pivotal moment for the Indian legal industry as it signals the transformative change allowing the entry of foreign law…
Columbia Arbitration Day (CAD), held on April 14, 2023, enjoyed record attendance levels this year and was held in the historic Low Memorial Library, a fitting venue for the first in-person CAD since before the COVID-19 pandemic. The Judiciary in International Arbitration Proceedings The morning began with a panel moderated by Professor Alejandro Garro…
The UAE acceded to the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Award 1958 (“NYC”) in 2006 by virtue of Federal Decree No. 43 of 2006. In recent years, the approach taken by the onshore UAE courts towards the enforcement and recognition of awards under the NYC, including the challenges of…
In recent years, there has been a drive in the international arbitration community to further diversify the pool of professionals who work in international arbitration (arbitrators and counsel alike). Most recently, this has taken form in the publication of gender diversity statistics (see, e.g., the ICC’s dispute resolution statistics 2020 or the ICCA’s 2022 Gender…
In recent years, international investment law and the investor-state dispute settlement (‘ISDS’) system have arguably reached their melting point, with an increasing number of participants having diverging interests and perspectives. Many of these issues have come to the surface through the discussions ongoing at UNCITRAL Working Group III. In this context, the experiences of the…
On March 7, 2023, the virtual conference organized by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), as well as the Latin American Arbitration Association (ALARB) titled “Dispute Resolution in the Digital Economy” took place, within the context of UNCITRAL’s Working Group II works on dispute resolution and digital economy. During this conference, arbitration…
The energy sector has long been one of the major users of international arbitration, and the field has always been a fertile ground for disputes, whether they be price reviews, construction claims, sale and delivery disagreements or disputes over the decommissioning of assets. This has certainly been the case in recent years, including for arbitrations…
In recent decades, third-party funding in arbitration and litigation has grown exponentially in many jurisdictions and has become a matter of continuing debate in academia and practice. (See, for example, here and here for previous blog posts.) Currently, People’s Republic of China (“PRC” or “China”) legislation does not prohibit third-party funding, but it fails to…
