Jurisdiction

Arbitration Procedure, ICSID Arbitration, ISDS Reform, Korea, VIAC

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In the first week of November 2021, Seoul, once again, connected leading ADR practitioners, legal professionals, and scholars from different corners of the world through the Seoul ADR Festival 2021 (“SAF”). The SAF’s main flagship event was the 10th Asia-Pacific ADR Virtual Conference. Co-hosted by the UNCITRAL, Korea’s Ministry of Justice, KCAB INTERNATIONAL, the International…

currency, Enforcement, Enforcement of an arbitration clause, Lebanon, MENA

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Much like Beckett’s Vladimir and Estragon, desperately waiting for Godot without success, the citizens of Lebanon are protagonists of a living theater of the absurd which their country has become, desperately waiting for legal, institutional and social reforms to no avail. While the collapse of the Lebanese financial system and the de facto capital controls…

Corruption, France, Recognition and enforcement of arbitral award

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Herbert Smith Freehills

It’s all still to play for. After the Paris Court of Appeal refused enforcement of a Swiss arbitral award against Alstom on the grounds of corruption, the French Supreme Court has now overturned that decision, ruling that the judges misinterpreted the evidence before them. The case may now be referred to the Versailles Court of…

2021 in Review, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Energy, ICSID Convention, Investment Arbitration, Latin America, Mexico

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In 2021, we witnessed a number of interesting developments in the field of investment arbitration in Latin America. From Mexico’s actions potentially triggering numerous treaty claims, to Colombia’s four consecutive victories, to Ecuador’s return to the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) Convention. Our authors did a tremendous job covering and sharing their…

Arbitration institution, Arbitration Institutions and Rules, Arbitration Rules, Denmark

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The Danish Institute of Arbitration (the DIA) updated its arbitration rules this year. The DIA Rules of Arbitration 2021 (the DIA Rules 2021) apply to arbitrations commenced on or after 13 April 2021, unless otherwise agreed. The updated rules tell us that the DIA focuses on best practice, pragmatism and efficiency, and that they bolster…

Austria, Interviews with Our Editors, VIAC

(Stockholm University)/ /1 Comment

Alice, welcome back to Kluwer Arbitration Blog, and thank you for allowing us to continue our previous conversation published here in 2019. This time we would like to focus on ‘Alice Fremuth-Wolf’ as one of the leading personalities of international arbitration who has promoted and implemented modern approaches to arbitration at the Vienna International Arbitral…

Enforceability, New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, Qatar

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Over the last few years, the courts in Qatar have been criticized from the arbitration community for having issued several rulings setting aside both domestic and foreign arbitral awards on public policy grounds. In particular, these rulings held that like court issued judgments, domestic and even foreign arbitral awards were required to be rendered in…

Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tonga, UNCITRAL Model Law

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YIAG

The Kingdom of Tonga is dedicated to furthering the development of arbitration. A little more than a year ago, this blog published a post reporting that Tonga had acceded to the New York Convention on 12 June 2020. The New York Convention came into force for Tonga on 10 September 2020, and exactly three months…

Russia, Sanctions, United States

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This entry is the last in a series of three regarding issues faced by arbitral and financial institutions as a result of restrictions on transfers of funds under primary and secondary sanctions programmes. In the first post, the authors addressed the impact of asset freezes on arbitral institutions and their banks, while the second post…

Interviews with Our Editors, New York, New York Arbitration Week, United States, United States Courts

(Law Offices of Kiran N Gore PLLC; The George Washington University Law School) and (New York International Arbitration Center)/ /Leave a comment

Benno Kimmelman is an independent arbitrator and active in the New York arbitration community. He teaches international arbitration and international litigation courses at Brooklyn Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, and American University’s Washington College of Law. Edna Sussman is a New York-based arbitrator and mediator. She is the Distinguished ADR Practitioner in Residence at…

Awards, Enforcement, Latin America, New York Arbitration Week, United States Courts

, (Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP)/ /Leave a comment

On November 16, 2021, during New York Arbitration Week 2021, several committees of the New York City Bar Association hosted a panel discussion entitled “Dispelling Myths:  Enforcement of Latin American Arbitration Awards in the United States and U.S. Arbitration Awards in Latin America,” which focused on enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in the United States,…

EU Law, Greece, International Arbitration Procedures, State Aid

(Meidanis Seremetakis & Associates)/ /Leave a comment

In a recent judgment of the General Court (the “GC”) in joined cases – T-639/14 RENV, T-352/15 and T-740/17, the question of the clash between EU law (in this case, state aid legislation) and arbitration was discussed. Not surprisingly, from an EU law standpoint, the EU Courts once again found that in case of such…

Arbitral Tribunal, Arbitration Proceedings, Arbitrators, Switzerland

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In June 2020, the Swiss Arbitration Association (ASA) launched its much-awaited Arbitration Toolbox, an online and interactive tool that guides a user through the various stages of an arbitration. Initially the brainchild of former ASA President, Elliott Geisinger, the Toolbox was brought to fruition under the presidency of the current ASA President Felix Dasser. The…

China, EU Law, European Union, Investment, Investment agreements, Investment law, Investment protection, Investment Treaties

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The EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI), agreed in principle in December 2020, was announced with great fanfare. Forged after seven years of negotiations between the world’s current largest trading block (the EU) and the country expected to have the world’s largest economy by the end of this decade (China), the CAI was set to…

Africa, BIT, Business and Human Rights Arbitration, Human Rights, Regime Interaction, Treaty, Treaty drafting

, (K&L Gates Straits Law LLC) and (University of Sydney Law School)/ /Leave a comment

This post shares a development of potential significance, i.e., the drafting of the Sustainable Investment Facilitation & Cooperation Agreement (SIFCA), a next-generation model bilateral investment treaty (BIT) developed for The Gambia, a sovereign State in West Africa and one of the world’s least developed countries (LDCs). This post continues the discussion raised in January 2021,…

Award Scrutiny, Awards, Court Proceedings, India

(JSA, Advocates & Solicitors) and , (J. Sagar Associates)/ /Leave a comment

It is no secret that Indian courts have previously faced criticism over their excessive interference in arbitral awards. However, there has been a course-correction in recent years, through legislation and judicial decisions. With the 2015 amendments to the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (“Act”), it is clear that judicial scrutiny of arbitral awards should be…

Canada, Domestic arbitration

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British Columbia (“BC”) was the first Canadian jurisdiction to introduce modern arbitration legislation based on international standards in the UNCITRAL Model Law in 1986. Despite being an early leader in arbitration in Canada, BC did not update its domestic legislation for over two decades, which caused some increasing discrepancies between BC’s arbitration legislation, the UNCITRAL…

Admissibility, English courts, English Law, Jurisdiction, Pre-arbitral procedure, UK

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Arbitration agreements often provide that certain procedural steps must be undertaken before arbitration is commenced, such as mediation or negotiation. This provides a ‘cooling-off period’ in which the parties can seek to resolve their dispute amicably before resorting to formal proceedings. When a party fails to satisfy a pre-arbitration procedural step and launches prematurely into…

New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, Null and void, United States, United States Courts

(Musick, Peeler & Garrett LLP)/ /Leave a comment

In CLMS Mgmt. Servs. et al. v. Amwins Brokerage et al., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit considered whether a state law (by operation of the federal McCarran-Ferguson Act, which gives states the authority to regulate the business of insurance) voiding arbitration agreements in insurance contracts reverse-preempted Article II, Section 3 of…

Conflicts of interest, Law Firms, Legal Practice, United States

(Arizona State University, Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law) and (University of Iowa College of Law)/ /Leave a comment
Institute for Transnational Arbitration (ITA)

For years, Australia and the U.K. have been the pioneering jurisdictions regarding ownership of law firms. Now, there’s a new kid on the block.  Recent developments in a few U.S. states, predominantly Arizona, and a new approach by the American Bar Association (ABA) signal a broad reexamination of the long-entrenched prohibition on non-lawyer participation (ownership…

Arbitration Agreements, Dubai, Jurisdiction, UAE Federal Arbitration Law

(Nayiri Boghossian FZE)/ /Leave a comment

The United Arab Emirates (“UAE”) has taken strides in increasingly accepting arbitration as the parties’ chosen dispute resolution mechanism. It is now well established that UAE courts would respect the parties’ agreement on arbitration and uphold valid arbitration clauses. In fact, Article 8(1) of the Federal Law on Arbitration, No. 6 (2018) (“UAE Arbitration Law”)…

Arbitration Agreement, England, France, Law governing the arbitration agreement

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On 27 October 2021, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom (the Court) issued a judgment in Kabab-Ji SAL v Kout Food Group [2021] UKSC 48. The Court upheld the earlier decision of the Court of Appeal finding that the law applicable to the arbitration agreement was the English choice of law for the whole…

DIAC, DIFC, Dubai

(Baker McKenzie Habib Al Mulla) and (Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi)/ /1 Comment

Dubai’s Decree 34 of 2021 (“Decree”) and its appended statute on DIAC (“Statute”) were promulgated on 14 September 2021. The Decree consolidates the local arbitration centres under a new-and-improved DIAC (“DIAC 2.0”), and notably abolishes the DIFC Arbitration Institute (“DIFC-LCIA”), marking the beginning of a new era for arbitration in Dubai. From the outset, DIAC…

Iran, Sanctions, United States

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This post, which follows up on a recent submission in respect of the impact of asset freezes on arbitral and financial institutions, addresses some of the issues that may be faced by such institutions as a result of restrictions that form part of the United States’ secondary sanctions against Iran. A third and final post…