The analysis of Ukrainian court practice enables us to share our thoughts on trends regarding the recognition and enforcement of GAFTA/FOSFA awards in Ukraine, and to provide tips that may help to enforce this type of awards in the future. Seven Trends on the Recognition and Enforcement of GAFTA/FOSFA Awards in Ukraine 1. Ukrainian courts…
In a judgment dated 8 June 2017, the Hong Kong Court of First Instance (the “Court”) rejected an assertion of Crown immunity by China National Coal Group Corporation (“China Coal”) (a PRC state-owned enterprise (“SOE”)) and granted a charging order against the shares it held in a Hong Kong company, China Coal Hong Kong Limited…
Since the end of January 2017, a new law amending and supplementing the Code of Civil Procedure became effective (the “Law”). It also provides for amendments to the International Commercial Arbitration Act (“ICAA”) and to the Consumers Protection Act (“CPA”). Below is a summary of some of the key changes introduced by the Law. Consumer…
In a recent judgment, the Qatari Court of Cassation ruled that an arbitral tribunal may only hear a dispute arising from a contract that is valid and that the validity of a contract is to be determined solely and exclusively by the courts (Civil Appeal No. 65-2017). Notably, the judgment was issued on 18 April…
I. Introduction A deposition is a “witness’s sworn out-of-court testimony” (Legal Information Institute “Wex, Deposition”). In U.S.-based litigation, a deposition is available as part of the discovery procedure. In the United States, a deposition is also available in arbitration. Arbitral tribunals seated in the United States may order a deposition of a witness if s/he…
A previous post analyzed the application of the fair and equitable treatment (“FET”) and legitimate expectations in the recent award in Eiser Infrastructure Ltd. v. Spain (ICSID Case No. ARB/13/36), the first ICSID case to reach a final award related to the measures Spain applied to roll-back certain incentives and benefits offered to promote investment…
The Twenty-eighth ITF Public Conference on Economic Crime and International Investment Law, hosted by the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL) on 22 May 2017, attracted 13 distinguished speakers and more than 100 participants for a day discussion on the issues of economic crime in investor-state arbitration. The conference provided a forum for…
On May 4, 2017 the third final award on the Spanish energy arbitration saga was unveiled. After two wins against Charanne and Isolux Infrastructure (both SCC), this time the foreign investors scored a point, leaving the overall score table at 2-1. In Eiser, the first ICSID case to reach a final award related to the…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently issued an en banc decision, in International Refugee Assistance Project IRAP v Trump, affirming the district court’s injunction against President Trump’s Executive Order temporarily suspending entry into the United States by individuals from six Muslim-majority countries. Although the case concerns the application of specialized U.S….
There has been much recent judicial activism in Spain in arbitration matters. Although the grounds for annulment of an arbitral award are limited in Spanish Arbitration Law (Article 41) and reflect the UNCITRAL Model Law standards, the volume of recent annulment decisions and the array of issues considered have been noteworthy. The most active court…
In a recent ruling (see Commercial Case No. 1619/2016, ruling of the Dubai Court of First Instance of 15 February 2017), the Dubai Court of First Instance annulled the DIFC Courts’ rulings in the Banyan Tree line of cases (see Case No. ARB/003/2013, rulings of the DIFC Court of First Instance of 2nd April 2015…
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…
VIEWS FROM ASIA Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, Adjudicator, Advocate, or Something in Between? Coming to Terms with the Role of the Party-appointed Arbitrator Abstract: This article analyses the role of party-appointed arbitrators in international arbitration, providing a comprehensive discussion of the challenges posed to this institution by the growth of arbitration accompanying the expansion 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,…
On 4 April 2017, the Madrid High Court of Justice (“TSJM”), the court in Spain that handles appeals for the annulment of awards, issued two decisions – Case numbers 43/2016 and 63/2016 – in which it confirms the doctrine already advanced by means of a previous judgment rendered by the same court (see Judgment of…
My previous blog post on this topic dealt with two issues stemming from the juxtaposition between the current arbitration legal framework and necessary due process requirements which are specifically developed for antitrust damages proceedings: (1) the necessary regulation of complex arbitration specifically designed for antitrust damages matters, and (2) the need to address information asymmetry…
Introduction The dispute over the enforcement of an arbitration award (“Award”) between the Astro and Lippo groups of companies has been fought out in numerous jurisdictions, notably Singapore and Hong Kong. When Astro sought to enforce the Award it had obtained against Lippo in Singapore, Lippo resisted on the ground that the tribunal (“Tribunal”) lacked…
On his last day in office, former EU Trade Commissioner De Gucht sent the request for an opinion from the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) aiming to get a seal of approval from the CJEU that the EU-SING FTA and all future EU trade and investment treaties fall completely within the EU’s exclusive…
As in García-Marquez’s novel, the denunciation of the Ecuadorian bilateral investment treaties (“BITs”) represents a chronicle of a death foretold and the Ecuadorian National Assembly and Ecuador’s President have taken one of the final steps to terminate them. Along the way, the internal termination proceedings have been highly politicized, international investment arbitration has been demonized,…
One of the most significant changes that the new Russian Arbitration Law introduced, which has been in force for past eight months, relates to the requirement of Governmental authorization for establishing an arbitral institution (more discussion on this can be found in some of previous KAB posts available here, here, here). In particular, the Russian…
On April 28, 2017, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (in a majority decision) affirmed the district court’s decision to set aside an award issued by a sole arbitrator finding that the award violated public policy. The award was rendered in the context of mandatory arbitration of statutory claims under the…
In many ways, Portugal is a remarkable arbitration-friendly jurisdiction. Not only a new UNICTRAL Model based law has been enacted a few years back now, but also its courts have proved to be very supportive of arbitration. The deference that they have been showing to the validity of the arbitration clause inserted in derivatives master…
On 11 January 2017, the Swiss Federal Council proposed a revised version of the Swiss International Private Law Act (“SPILA”) relating to international arbitration (art. 176 et seq.) with a view to increasing the attractiveness of Switzerland as a place of arbitration while preserving the concise, liberal and flexible traits of the SPILA. More precisely,…
On March 9, 2017, a three-person ICSID Tribunal rendered an Award in Ansung Housing Co., Ltd. v. People’s Republic of China. The case marks the second time where China appears as a Respondent before an ICSID tribunal. The first case was brought by a Malaysian company in May 2011, but that case was discontinued on…
