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…
As reported in the excellent piece by Alejandro López Ortiz and Gustavo Fernandes in “A Year of Legal Developments for International Arbitration in Latin America”, Bolivia may have taken a step back in State arbitration with the passing of its new act on arbitration in 2015. The article remarks the limitations to arbitrability introduced by…
On December 30, 2016, the Supreme People’s Court (“SPC”) issued a set of new Opinions. It covers an array of matters relating to legal measures to expedite the development of Free Trade Zones. (Opinions on Providing Judicial Protection for the Construction of Pilot Free Trade Zones, December 30, 2016). Among other matters, the SPC sought…
On 22 March 2017, with minimal fanfare, the Civil Law and Justice Amendment Legislation Bill 2017 (“2017 Bill”) was introduced into the upper house of the federal Parliament. Buried within this omnibus Bill were four proposed reforms to the International Arbitration Act (IAA), renamed as such in 1989 when Australia was one of the first…
The question of whether the jurisdictional grant in a “service of suit” clause overrides an otherwise valid and enforceable arbitration clause in the same agreement has been addressed by several courts in the United States. See McDermott Int’l, Inc. v. Lloyds Underwriters of London, 944 F.2d 1199 (5th Cir. 1991); Neca Ins., Ltd. v. Nat’l…
The ability of a party to obtain urgent interim relief is central to the efficacy of any method of dispute resolution. In case of disputes that are subject to an arbitration agreement, until recently parties had only two options: either approach national courts for interim relief in support of the arbitration, or wait for the…
In early March 2017, the Singapore High Court released a judgment in which it considered an important question of enforcement of investor-state awards. In Josias Van Zyl v Kingdom of Lesotho [2017] SGHCR 2, AR Pereira was asked to decide whether an order to enforce a final award in a treaty dispute administered by the…
In international arbitration, as in other fields of law, the divide between private and public—commercial arbitration and public international (including investment) arbitration—traditionally has been the generally, if uncritically, accepted belief. When public bodies are involved in commercial contracts, the traditional point of distinction has been whether the state operated jure imperii or jure gestionis. Apart…
Introduction Western Australia has many of the hallmarks of an arbitral hub: from a stable liberal democracy, a reliable and predictable judiciary, and very low rates of corruption, to offices of numerous national and international law firms, world-standard business hotels (albeit only a recent arrival), and an efficient international airport (again, only of late, but…
The obligation for an arbitral tribunal to deliberate before rendering an award is at the heart of the arbitral process. In fact, parties typically agree to submit their disputes to a panel of three arbitrators for the purpose of ensuring objectivity, well thought decisions and equal treatment. Deliberation is so fundamental to the arbitral procedure…
One of the goals of “ICCA’s Guide to the Interpretation of the 1958 New York Convention: A Handbook for Judges” – as stated by Neil Kaplan in the Guide’s introduction – is to assist judges around the world in “using the Convention in a way consistent with its letter and spirit”. It seems that the…
Sierra Leone’s inaugural Commercial Law Summit was held this March (2017) on the theme of facilitating responsible private sector development through improvements in commercial law justice (Hebert Smith Freehill and UK-Sierra Leone Pro-Bono Network, ‘Conference Pack’, 2017). The summit provided a distinctive opportunity for the main stakeholders in commercial law and justice to map out…
NAFTA on the tightrope One of President Donald Trump’s most frequent campaign promises was to “eliminate” the North American Free Trade Agreement (“NAFTA”), which he described as “the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere, but certainly ever signed in this country.” He then softened his tone and stated that he would renegotiate the treaty,…
Three decades, two wars, one occupation, and multiple democratic elections later, I found myself back in my country of birth, Iraq, in April 2017. I was invited to Baghdad by the Iraq Energy Institute (IEI) as a speaker at the 2017 Iraq Energy Forum (IEF), under the patronage of the Iraq government and the Iraq…
In K.V.C. Rice Intertrade Co Ltd v Asian Mineral Resources Pte Ltd [2017] SGHC 32, the Singapore High Court enforced so-called “bare” arbitration clauses, i.e., clauses that specify neither the place of arbitration nor the means of appointing arbitrators. In Singapore, the President of the SIAC Court of Arbitration is designated as the statutory appointing…
It is well known that Greek public finances have been in a precarious state since the country’s debt crisis erupted in 2010. In an environment of tough fiscal consolidation, compensation awards running in millions present a significant economic and political challenge. This post discusses a case before the Greek Supreme Court that resulted in a…
The long-standing dispute over the territory of Western Sahara has been the subject of a treaty, an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, an armed conflict, a United Nations-brokered ceasefire, and several General Assembly and Security Council resolutions. It has also recently come to the fore in several cases before the EU and…
In TMT Co Ltd v The Royal Bank of Scotland plc [2017] SGHC 21, the Singapore High Court took the view that an arbitration clause did not meet the prima facie standard to warrant a stay of court proceedings because it designated an inapplicable arbitral institution. Commentators have suggested that the decision is “surprising” and…
