Poland surprised the world when on 25 August 2022 the Government submitted to the Polish Parliament a draft law authorizing the President of Poland to terminate the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) and the Energy Charter Protocol on Energy Efficiency and Related Environmental Aspects. The idea of Poland terminating the ECT had not been floated in the…
The dispute resolution landscape in Japan is almost unrecognisable from the position 20 years ago. In that time, Japan has evolved into a significant market for cross-border contentious legal matters. Sophisticated Japanese corporations with significant overseas business are comfortable using international arbitration and mediation as methods of dispute resolution. 86% of the case load of…
After a gala evening at the National Museum of Scotland filled with Scottish gastronomy and ceilidh dancing, delegates returned to the conference centre for the last day of the ICCA Congress. Renaissance Arbitrator This panel asked: “what can lawyers and arbitrators learn from disciplines outside the law and arbitration?”. That question is particularly timely as…
The second day of the ICCA Congress took place on Tuesday, September 20. Delegates gathered in the morning for the presentation of the inaugural ICCA Guillermo Aguilar-Alvarez Memorial Prize, established in honour of former ICCA Governing Board Member Guillermo Aguilar-Alvarez. Professor Stefano Azzali said a few words on the life and career of Guillermo, fondly…
After a long, pandemic-induced delay, the ICCA Congress in Edinburgh is now in full swing. Six and a half long years after winning the bid to host the XXVth ICCA Congress, I had almost forgotten why we, the Scottish Arbitration Centre, had made the bid in the first place, but as the international arbitration community…
The 2022 ICCA Congress kicks off today in Edinburgh. Together with our Host Committee, the Scottish Arbitration Centre, and my Congress co-chair and immediate past ICCA President Gabrielle Kaufmann-Kohler, it is an honor to declare the XXVth ICCA Congress officially open! Arbitration’s Age of Enlightenment? The XXVth ICCA Congress has been seven years in the…
Lord Chief Justice Hon. Michael H. Whitten KC has been the Lord Chief Justice of the Kingdom of Tonga since 2 September 2019. After gaining early broad experience in various areas of law, Chief Justice Whitten was called to the Queensland Bar in 1990 before moving to Victoria where he practised for more than 20…
On 21 April 2022, the Dubai Court of Cassation (the “Cassation Court”) issued a judgment in respect of an application for the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitration award in case no. 109 of 2022 (the “Judgment”, available in Arabic-only on the Court’s website). In the Judgment, the Cassation Court considered whether an arbitration award…
In many Arab countries, including Jordan, special legislative and regulatory instruments are in place to provide certain protections for local commercial agents and distributors. The relevant laws regularly vest the local courts with exclusive jurisdiction to rule on disputes between agents/distributors and principals. Such exclusive jurisdiction rules prevent derogation from the jurisdiction of local state courts…
A little over a decade has passed since the introduction of the Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration in Australia as the framework for uniform domestic arbitration legislation. Before this, the various enactments of domestic legislation in the Australian states and territories had followed English Acts. For example, the New South Wales 1902 Arbitration Act…
After the October 2021’s plebiscite, Chile began the process of drafting a new constitution, which was entrusted to a “Convención Constituyente“. After a year of work, on July 4, 2022, the final proposal was delivered to the President of the Republic. The proposed constitution will be submitted to a ratifying plebiscite in September of this…
The 1996 Brazilian Arbitration Act (the “BAA”), which subjects domestic and international arbitrations to the same set of rules, has been modified only once through the 2015 amendment (the “2015 Amendment”). On July 6, 2022, Brazilian party leaders signed a Motion of Urgency to bypass the standard legislative process – which usually comprises public consultations…
Uzbekistan has updated certain legislative acts in connection with the recent adoption of the Law “On International Commercial Arbitration” (No. O’RQ-674) in 2021 (as previously covered in this blog). On May 16, 2022, the President of Uzbekistan signed a new law “On amendments and additions to certain legislative acts of the Republic of Uzbekistan in…
As most arbitration laws, the Brazilian Arbitration Act (Law n. 9307/1996; “BAL”) establishes a short deadline for any interested party to seek annulment of an arbitral award in court. The interested party has a 90-day period as from (i) notice of the partial or final arbitral award or (ii) the decision on a motion for clarification…
On 29 June 2022, an ICSID Tribunal composed of Alexis Mourre, Luis González García and Adolfo Jiménez issued its Final Award in the case brought by Alejandro Diego Díaz Gaspar, a Spanish national, against Costa Rica. The majority of the Tribunal ultimately found minor breaches of the underlying Costa Rica-Spain Bilateral Investment Treaty (the “Treaty”)…
On 21 July 2022, the European Council adopted Decision (CFSP) 2022/1271 amending Decision 2014/512/CFSP and Council Regulation (EU) 2022/1269 amending Regulation (EU) No 833/2014 concerning restrictive measures in view of Russia’s actions destabilising the situation in Ukraine. One of the amendments introduced by the European Council appears to have assuaged the concerns of arbitral institutions…
Can a court restrain a State from pursuing civil proceedings in a foreign jurisdiction? This was the question before the English High Court in UK P&I Club N.V. and United Kingdom Mutual Steam Ship Assurance Association Ltd v República Bolivariana de Venezuela RCGS “Resolute” [2022] EWHC 1655 (Comm). UK P&I Club N.V. (the “English Club”)…
The history of arbitration in the Principality of Andorra began with two arbitration procedures in the years 1278 and 1288 which led to the signing, between the Bishop of Urgell and the Earl of Foix, of the Paréages which created the Principality. Despite this historical background and the fact that arbitration has been conducted in…
Not so long ago, as a lawyer you started your career at the same firm from which you would later retire. Today, the opposite is true. Ambitious young lawyers and sometimes even entire practice groups move to new firms. Counsel switch between in-house and law firm positions, between public and private employers, and occasionally between…
Third-party funding is not directly addressed in Serbian legislation. Consequently, there is widespread debate as to whether third-party funding is allowed under Serbian law. This post analyses whether third-party funding of arbitration costs and associated legal fees is admissible in Serbia. It further addresses the conditions that have to be met in order for such…
Winston Churchill said in 1942 that the war was not at the end, adding: “It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning”. When it comes to international arbitration, the beginning is easy enough to discern from the notice of arbitration. Divining the end can be…
Arbitral tribunals are often faced with questions concerning the interpretation and enforcement of liquidated damages clauses; in such cases, the law governing the contract can significantly affect what damages can be claimed, the standard for proving such damages, and consequently the outcome of the dispute. This blog post examines the differences between English law and…
This question of first impression under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) has been brought to the fore with the spring 2022 publication of the Request for Arbitration (“Request”) submitted by TC Energy Corporation and TransCanada PipeLines Limited against United States (dated November 22, 2021) and the Notice of Intent (“Notice”) submitted by Alberta Petroleum Marketing…
The arbitration world’s most famous ice skater, Claudia Pechstein, has won a stage victory in her long-lasting and widely discussed struggle against the international sports arbitration system. On June 3, the German Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht (BVerfG), Beschluss vom 3.6.2022, 1 BvR 2103/16) sided with Pechstein in her constitutional complaint against a ruling of the…
