Last year saw positive movements in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands to better promote the use of arbitration in the region. Arbitral institution rules were modernised and domestic legal frameworks were introduced all to stimulate arbitration activity. The year also saw a sharp focus on the benefits of empirical studies to understand how…
Bilateral investment treaties depend upon international arbitration as the mechanism to resolve disputes between sovereign states and investors. Although offering obvious advantages over litigation before national courts, investors are not immune from the risk of proceedings becoming destabilized by external factors. A recent example involved Air Canada, the country’s flag carrier, and the Bolivarian Republic…
The Center for Studies and Research in Arbitration from the University of São Paulo (“CEPArb-USP”) has recently made public the findings of its pioneer empirical research on challenges of arbitrators in domestic proceedings in Brazil. The initiative analyzed data from challenges in proceedings administered by the Câmara de Mediação e Arbitragem Empresarial – Brasil (CAMARB)….
“Pedro, adelante, con juicio“: this Spanish exhortation comes from a famous Italian novel, “I Promessi Sposi” by Alessandro Manzoni. The Spanish governor of Milan gives these ambiguous instructions to his coachman Pedro, who is steering the carriage amidst a rioting mob: “forward, but be careful“. It became proverbial for describing an uneasy balance between action…
Inconsistent decisions have long been a major criticism in investment arbitration. This does not only pertain to decisions on procedure, jurisdiction or merits but also to quantum issues. This contribution will center around one unlikely connection that has the potential to enhance consistency and predictability in an area of quantification of damages in investment arbitration:…
On November 23, 2021, Ecuador’s Attorney General (“AG”), Iñigo Salvador Crespo announced the creation of a new institutional framework for handling disputes brought against the state and state entities with the vision of preventing and reducing litigation, particularly costly international arbitrations. The Institutional Strengthening of the Attorney General’s Office Project (“PROFIP” for its initials in…
Since its establishment in 2018 by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Uzbekistan, the Tashkent International Arbitration Centre (the “TIAC”) has kept abreast the evolution of the global social and economic climate and modern international arbitration practices, and sought to modernize its administration of international arbitrations to meet current and future challenges faced by…
The 2021 Shanghai Arbitration Week (“SHAW”) kicked off on 8 November 2021, accompanying the grand event of the Shanghai International Arbitration Summit. Mr. Xiong Xuanguo, Vice Minister of the Justice Department of the PRC, Mr. Peng Chenlei, Vice Mayor of Shanghai Municipal People’s Government, Ms. Anna Joubin-Bret, Secretary-General of UNCITRAL, and Ms. Lucy Reed, President…
Brazil is an interesting actor in the field of investment-related treaties. For example, Brazil has been a major player when it comes to foreign direct investment (“FDI”) outflows. This was not always the case. Brazilian outward foreign direct investment (“OFDI”) was minor throughout the 1990s. However, after economic and institutional reforms, Brazilian companies became increasingly internationalized,…
On 1 December 2021, the Svea Court of Appeal in Stockholm rejected Kibar Enerji Anonim Sirketi’s request to set aside an arbitral award in a dispute with Gazprom Export LLC over contract pricing of natural gas. Kibar alleged that the arbitral tribunal had exceeded its mandate and had also committed a procedural error when issuing…
Being a Member State of the EU and a party to the New York Convention (NYC), the Republic of Bulgaria is an attractive destination to locate the seat of your arbitration proceedings. This is especially so if you are seeking a neutral venue where costs for travel, accommodation and similar, would be significantly lower in…
Under Article 10(1) of the ILC Articles on State Responsibility, acts committed by rebels (or any other type of ‘insurrection movements’) during a successful insurgency aimed at establishing a new government are attributable to the State after their victory. After the civil war, and once the rebels have formed a new government, the State will…
Helsinki International Arbitration Day (HIAD) is an arbitration conference organised by The Finland Arbitration Institute (FAI). HIAD brings together legal practitioners from Finland and abroad to hear from top experts on the latest developments in international arbitration and mediation. This year’s event, held on 3 December 2021, was attended by more than 200 participants and focused…
In the 1970s, when my father left India to study abroad, trunk calls home were rare and expensive, requiring shouting into the phone. In 2020, we have all exasperatedly repeated “You’re on mute” and “Am I audible?” into our screens on an almost daily basis. As public spaces became off-limits, those with access to technology…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
