Jurisdiction

Arbitration Awards, Emergency Arbitrator, Energy Charter Treaty, Enforcement, Investment Arbitration, Ukraine

(Central European University)/ /Leave a comment

On June 8, 2015, Pecherskyi District Court of Kyiv (“Pecherskyi Court”) upheld an application lodged by JKX Oil & Gas plc, Poltava Gas B.V. and JV Poltava Petroleum Company (“JKX Companies”) to enforce an emergency arbitrator award rendered under the Arbitration Rules of the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (“SCC Rules”) against…

Arbitral Award, DIFC, Domestic Courts, forum non conveniens, Recognition and enforcement of arbitral award, United Arab Emirates

(Blanke Arbitration LLC)/

By an order of late last year (ARB 002/2014 – A v. B, Order of Justice Sir David Steel of 16 December 2014), Justice Sir David Steel dismissed an application by an award debtor seeking a number of orders to avoid the recognition and enforcement of an award rendered by the Dubai International Arbitration Centre…

Arbitrability, Company Law, Public Procurement, Ukraine

(Arzinger) and (Hogan Lovells)/ /1 Comment

Introduction The question of arbitrability of corporate and public procurement disputes is a topic constantly evolving due to new cutting-edge precedents. Ukraine does not constitute an exception, and continues to develop its jurisprudence. Despite being far from corporate in its nature, the recent dispute between reputable Austrian company (VAMED Engineering GmbH & CO KG) and…

DIFC, Dubai, Enforcement, forum non conveniens, New York Convention, Uncategorized, United Arab Emirates

(Blanke Arbitration LLC)/ /Leave a comment

By Order of 5 January 2014 (see Case ARB 001/2014 – (1) X1 (2) X2 v. (1) Y, Order of the Dubai Court of First Instance), H.E. Justice Ali Al Madhani, one of the UAE-national resident judges of the DIFC Courts, dismissed an application by an award debtor for an order referring a purported conflict…

Arbitration clause, Brazil, Company Law

(Lobo e Ibeas Advogados)/ /Leave a comment

and Rômulo Greff Mariani, Souto Correa Cesa Lummertz & Amaral Advogados The enforceability of arbitration clauses in the bylaws of companies set up under Brazilian law has long been a source of controversy. The topic is now in the spotlight with the notorious In Re Petrobras Securities Litigation, a class action filed before the US…

Arbitral Award, DIFC, Dubai, Enforcement, Final Award, MENA, Middle East, New York Convention, Public Policy, Recognition and enforcement of arbitral award, Uncategorized, United Arab Emirates

(Blanke Arbitration LLC)/ /Leave a comment

Attentive readers of this Blog will remember that the Court of Appeal of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) adopted a ruling in the latter half of last year confirming its status as a “host” or “intermediate” – or, in the Court’s own words, “conduit” – jurisdiction for the enforcement of domestic arbitration awards rendered…

Africa, Amicus Curiae, BIT, Canada, Investment Arbitration, Oil & Gas

(Allen & Overy LLP) and (A&O Shearman)/ /Leave a comment

In the past two years, Canada has signed BITs with nine African states: Benin (January 2013), United Republic of Tanzania (May 2013), Cameroon (March 2014), Nigeria (May 2014), Senegal (November 2014), Mali (November 2014), Cote d’Ivoire (November 2014), Burkina Faso (April 2015) and most recently Guinea (May 2015). The first eight of these treaties (the…

Asia-Pacific, Commercial Arbitration, Domestic Courts, Enforcement, International arbitration, Investment Arbitration, Recognition and enforcement of arbitral award, Singapore, Singapore International Commercial Court

(Mayer Brown LLP)/ /Leave a comment

and Paul Tan, Rajah & Tann Singapore LLP Short answer: Yes for some actions, but not all. Here is why. The Singapore International Commercial Court (“SICC”) was launched in January 2015 and provides litigants with the benefits of court proceedings and international arbitration without the constraints and setbacks of either option. Thus far, murmurs of…

Arbitration clause, Dubai, Enforcement, Recognition and enforcement of arbitral award, Uncategorized

(Blanke Arbitration LLC)/

Regular readers of this Blog will be aware of the DIFC Court’s adoption of Practice Direction No. 2 of 2015 on the Referral of Payment Judgment Disputes to Arbitration (“PD 2 of 2015”) earlier this year (for contemporaneous reporting see my previous blog). As the title of the Direction suggests, it essentially allows judgment creditors…

India, Interim Orders, Pakistan, Permanent Court of Arbitration, State-to-state arbitration, Treaty

(Clyde and Co) and (Legaleidescope)/ /Leave a comment
Clyde & Co.

International arbitration has been widely recognized as an efficient process for resolving State-to-State disputes. Factors such as procedural flexibility and party autonomy, which contribute to general appeal of international arbitration, play out to render arbitration as the preferable option for settlement of complex disputes between States. More importantly, however, the success and broader acceptance of…

Appointment of arbitrators, Arbitration Institutions and Rules, Portugal

(Bocconi University)/ /5 Comments
Arbitrator Intelligence

Seemingly not a month goes by without a new arbitral institution springing up, from Turkey to Bulgaria, from Georgia to Jerusalem, and from Cambodia to Rwanda. Establishing a new arbitration center, however, is not simply a matter of finding office space or picking a name.  In fact, picking a name can barely even be considered…

Arbitration, Arbitration clause, Australia, Free Trade Agreements, International arbitration, Investment Arbitration, Transparency

(Australian National University)/ /Leave a comment

On 24 June 2015, the Australian Productivity Commission released its eighteenth Trade and Assistance Review 2013-14. The Commission is an independent research and advisory body, with statutory authority to report annually on the economic impacts of Australia’s international trade policy. As readers of this blog may recall, in previous years the Commission’s Review has influenced…

Arbitration, Arbitration Institutions and Rules, National Arbitration Laws, Russia

(Fangda Partners)/ /1 Comment

Introduction and background Vladivostok is often perceived as the ‘capital’ of Russia’s Far East. It is also often portrayed, however, as Moscow’s backward colonial outpost, with few cars on the streets and where the supermarkets’ half-empty shelves offer nothing but Bulgarian pickles and stale bread. This perception is misguided. Russia’s Far East encompasses 36% of…

Arab World, BIT, Middle East, New York Convention

(Covington & Burling LLP)/ /Leave a comment
ArbitralWomen

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and should not be regarded as representative of, or binding upon ArbitralWomen and/or the author’s law firm. Arbitration in the Arab World is a hot topic these days. Over the past few decades the Arab World has become a region at the forefront…

Brazil, Uncategorized

(Atelier Juridico) and / /Leave a comment

On May 26, 2015, the law containing the amendments to the Brazilian Arbitration Act (BAA) was finally enacted (Law n. 13,129/2015), almost 20 years after the publication of the BAA. It will soon enter into force, on 27 July 2015. Though Law n. 13.129/15 amended certain provisions of the BAA and introduced some innovations, it…

Ecuador, Uncategorized

(Carmigniani Pérez Abogados)/ /Leave a comment

  On May 22, the new General Organic Code of Processes (GOCP) was enacted (Official Register Supplement N. 506). Excluding constitutional, electoral and criminal matters, the GOCP will regulate all judicial procedures in Ecuador. It is a long expected and generally very welcome reform in the Ecuadorian judicial system. It replaces an outdated spaghetti bowl…

Arbitration Act, Brazil, Jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal, Set aside an arbitral award, Supplementary Award

/ /Leave a comment

On 27 July 2015 the Bill amending to the Brazilian Arbitration Law will come into force, introducing significant changes in the arbitration legal framework, which, according to the stated purpose of the amendments, aim at improving the original Brazilian Arbitration Law, enacted in 1996. The amendments attempt to consolidate established practices as well as settling…

Brazil, Investment agreements, Investment Arbitration, Investment protection, ISDS, Recognition and enforcement of arbitral award

(University of California, Berkeley)/ /Leave a comment

On May 26, 2015, Brazil signed its third investment treaty of 2015 with Mexico. Given the agreements previously signed with Angola and Mozambique, this certainly comes as a confirmation of a new Brazilian attitude towards the regulation of foreign investment. The instrument mostly follows the same model used for the previous two: a Cooperation and…

Interim Award, Singapore

(Clyde and Co) and (Clyde & Co.)/ /Leave a comment
Clyde & Co.

Introduction As reported by Clyde & Co for the Kluwer Arbitration Blog on 12 January 2015, the Singapore High Court released its decision in PT Perusahaan Gas Negara (Persero) TBK v CRW Joint Operation (Indonesia) [2014] SGHC 146 relating to PT Perusahaan Gas’ (PGN) unsuccessful appeal of an interim arbitral award made in favour of…

Arbitration, Energy, Energy Charter Treaty, Investment, Investment Arbitration, Investment protection, Investor, Italy, Russia

(Stockholm University)/ /Leave a comment

No doubt that the last three years have been quite busy for the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) and for the Energy Charter Conference. The number of investor-state arbitration cases under Article 26 of the ECT doubled in this time span, going from thirty known cases to sixty-eight (as reported on the website of the Energy…

Arbitral Award, Ecuador, Investor, Oil & Gas, Permanent Court of Arbitration

(Herbert Smith Freehills)/ /1 Comment

The controversial dispute between the Ecuadorian government and the multinational corporation Chevron arose from the operations undertaken by Texpet –a subsidiary of Texaco at that time- on the country’s Amazon region during the eighties. Texpet was the operator undertaking the exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbons in association with Petroecuador, formerly CEPE, the state-owned oil company…

Ad hoc arbitration, ASEAN, Asia-Pacific, Thailand

(DLA Piper) and / /Leave a comment

Ad hoc arbitration, in which the proceedings are administered by the disputing parties, their counsel and the arbitral tribunal without the involvement of an arbitral institution, can perhaps seem a daunting prospect in any jurisdiction. Thailand has arbitral institutions on hand to provide their services — including the well-established Thai Arbitration Institute (“TAI“) and the…

Arbitral seat, Asia-Pacific, Cambodia, International arbitration, National Commercial Arbitration Centre of the Kingdom of Cambodia

(Fangda Partners)/ /1 Comment

The National Commercial Arbitration Centre of the Kingdom of Cambodia (“NCAC”) was conceived in 2006, when Cambodia’s Commercial Arbitration Law entered into force. The initiative to create the centre surfaced as a part of Cambodia’s attempt to attract foreign investment on the one hand and to offer a viable alternative to domestic litigation to local…

Arbitration Agreements, Arbitration Institutions and Rules, Commercial Arbitration, Hybrid arbitration clause, Set aside an international arbitral award, Sweden

(University of Aberdeen)/ /1 Comment

Party autonomy is a well-established cornerstone of arbitration, which treats the parties as the true creators of the arbitral procedure. Hybrid arbitration clauses are built on this cornerstone. In a certain type of hybrid arbitration clause, the parties place the administration of arbitration in the hands of one arbitration institution by using the rules of…