By José Miguel Júdice and Luís Castilho, PLMJ – Sociedade de Advogados Three years after the entry into force of the Portuguese Tax Arbitration Regime, the European Court of Justice (“the Court”) has, in the Ascendi Case (Case 377/13), finally issued a groundbreaking decision regarding the long standing question of whether the Tax Arbitral Court…
In a recent decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit considered Pemex’s allegations insufficient to sustain RICO jurisdiction in the Conproca vs. Pemex case. This prompts out a number of interrogations: Was the bar set too high for Pemex to sustain RICO Jurisdiction? Was the underlying reason of the Court’s decision…
During the last few years, a series of court decisions in India have strengthened the pro-arbitration stance in the Indian judiciary. In BALCO (2012), the Supreme Court of India limited the supervisory jurisdiction of the Indian courts regarding arbitrations seated outside India. Since BALCO, further decisions of the Supreme Court and High Courts of India…
Introduction On 13 March 2014, Thailand’s Central Administrative Court annulled an arbitration award in the case between Hong Kong-based Hopewell Holding and the Thai Ministry of Transport (“MoT”) and State Railway of Thailand (“SRT”). The dispute arose out of a 30-year concession dating back to 1990 to build a 60-km elevated highway and rail line…
In April 2014, Tiulei Hagalil and Klal Teufa, two Israeli companies providing tourism and flight services, commenced an action against Royal Jordanian Airlines and two other respondents in the Israeli District Court for monetary and declaratory relief (Tiulei Hagalil Transport (1987) Ltd. and others v. Royal Jordanian Airlines and others, Tel-Aviv-Jaffa District Court, 56420-03-14, 15…
The pronouncements of the highest-ranking court are key indicators of a legal system’s stance vis-à-vis arbitration and other private means of dispute resolution. Over the past decade, the Supreme Court of Canada has dealt with arbitration in a number of cases, and it initially did so in a manner that revealed a very supportive attitude….
The Bombay High Court recently upheld an Order passed by the Company Law Board (CLB) refusing to refer disputes, arising from a shareholders agreement, to arbitration. The proceedings before the CLB arose from a dispute between Rakesh Malhotra (Rakesh) and certain members of the Malhotra family for control of the Supermax Group of Companies a…
In an ambitious stride to become the leading maritime hub in the Middle East, the Emirate of Dubai is set to establish the Emirates Maritime Arbitration Centre, which in shorthand will be known as “EMAC”. Plans for the anticipated establishment of the Centre have recently been announced by Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the…
By Matthias Scherer and Sam Moss, LALIVE In a judgment dated 7 July 2014, which was made public on 20 August 2014 (case no. 4A_124/2014), the Swiss Federal Supreme Court (the “Supreme Court”) addressed the enforceability of a precondition for arbitration in a multi-tier dispute resolution provision, namely the requirement to submit a dispute to…
On 29 April 2014, the French Cour de cassation made a decision on the criteria a multi-tiered dispute resolution clause (“multi-tiered clause”) should meet to render claims inadmissible if disregarded.1)Cass. com. Medissimo v. Logica, 29 April 2014, n° 12-27.004. In this case, Medissimo, a pharmaceutical company, entered into a contract with Logica, an IT company,…
On September 1, 2014, the Brazilian Superior Court of Justice (“STJ”) issued an important decision recognizing, for the first time, an unreasoned arbitral award in Newedge USA, LLC v. Manoel Fernando Garcia. Notwithstanding challenges to the recognition and enforcement on the grounds that the New York arbitral award purported violated Brazilian public policy due to…
By Resolution of 27 March 2014, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly condemned the violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity (A/RES/68/262). The Security Council remained, however, powerless to impose against Russia economic sanctions which all UN member States would have had to implement. In the absence of such “multilateral” sanctions, the European Union (EU) and the…
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors alone and should not be regarded as representative of, or binding upon ArbitralWomen and/or the authors’ respective law firms. While the press has been full lately of a reported backlash against investment arbitration, Switzerland has been making quiet progress in its efforts to update…
Ukraine has a reputation of a country with an imperfect justice system. No wonder that the country is also pictured by many arbitration practitioners as one unfriendly to arbitration, though refusals to grant the leave for enforcement of arbitral awards in Ukraine are relatively rare – 10% and 18% of all requests considered in 2013…
Recently, the Kluwer Arbitration Blog published a post regarding the ongoing saga between the The Clorox Company and the Petroplus Companies. That post sought to answer two general questions: 1) the power of international arbitrators to overturn interim measures granted by Brazilian courts, and 2) the power of Brazilian courts to stay international arbitrations. While…
The debate regarding the extent to which most favoured nation (‘MFN’) clauses in bilateral investment treaties (‘BITs’) can expand the scope of application of such treaties is a well-established and evolving dialogue in investment treaty jurisprudence. However, while the issues around the extension of substantive and procedural protections in BITs have received considerable attention, the…
Indonesia is not the only Asia-Pacific nation that is reassessing investment treaties containing provisions on Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS, especially arbitration). India announced a review in 2013, partly in the wake of the successful claim from an Australian mining investor, although the impact in practice is hard to discern or predict – especially under the…
The Law Commission of India under the chairmanship of Justice AP Shah had constituted an expert committee to work on the 246th Report on “Amendment to the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996” which was recently submitted to the Government of India. In this piece, Ashutosh Ray, who was a part of the expert committee, covers…
Enactment of a federal arbitration law has been ‘imminent’ since the United Arab Emirates acceded to the New York Convention in 2006 (the ‘Convention’). Once enacted, it is expected that the federal law will repeal Articles 203 to 218 of Federal Law (11) of 1992, the Civil Procedure Code (‘CPC’), which currently govern arbitration in…
The value of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) procedures has lately been questioned by a number of countries. The Australian Government’s 2011 Trade Policy Statement – stating that Australia would not agree to ISDS in its treaties – caused much debate and controversy. In part, Australia’s policy was motivated by the Philip Morris claim, instituted in…
By Justin D’Agostino and Timothy Hughes, Herbert Smith Freehills The Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (“HKIAC“) has amended its Model Clauses in order to include an optional provision that specifies the parties’ choice of law to apply to an arbitration clause. The express designation of a particular law to govern an arbitration clause does not…
Do international arbitrators have the power to overturn interim measures granted by a Brazilian court? Do Brazilian courts have the power to stay international arbitrations? A recent decision rendered in the Petroplus Sul Comércio Exterior S.A. (“Petroplus”) et al. v. First Brands do Brasil Ltda. et al. (“First Brands”) dispute has just provided its answer…
A few days ago, this blog published an outsider’s perspective on the decision of the Supreme Court of India (SCI) in Reliance v Union of India (Reliance v Union of India, Civ App No. 5675 of 2014 (Supreme Court of India)) which has been applauded by international practitioners around the world since it curbed the…
A recent decision of the German Federal Supreme Court dated 8 May 2014 (case reference no. III ZR 371/12) again calls for a debate on the binding effect of an arbitration agreement for a non-signatory – a well-known and highly-debated phenomenon since the Dow Chemical arbitration. The Dow Chemical case According to the award rendered…
