A lot of positive commentary has been lavished out on the new Abu Dhabi Commercial Conciliation and Arbitration Centre (ADCCAC) Arbitration Rules, which entered into force with effect from 1st September 2013. It is, of course, difficult to deny that the new Rules are a huge improvement on the old ADCCAC Regulations, as they were…
On 27 August 2013, the Abu Dhabi Centre for Conciliation and Commercial Arbitration (the “Centre”), based in Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, presented its new list of arbitration rules (the “Rules”) effective as of 1st October 2013, following an extension of one month from the date that was initially perceived under the Rules…
A recent ruling of the Dubai Court of First Instance (see Case No. 489/2012, ruling of the Dubai Court of First Instance of 18 December 2012) questions de novo the UAE courts’ compliance with their obligations under international enforcement instruments in the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. Following the recent trend of consolidation of the…
Those who feared that following Sir David Steel J’s ruling in Injazat Capital Limited and Injazat Technology Fund B.S.C. v. Denton Wilde Sapte & Co before the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) Court of First Instance (ruling of 6 March 2012 in Claim No. CFI 019/2010, for previous reporting see here), the DIFC Courts and…
On 14 October 2012, Justice David Williams of the DIFC Court of First Instance (Dubai International Financial Centre) applied a course correction by issuing a decision confirming the jurisdiction of the DIFC Courts to grant a stay in the presence of a valid arbitration agreement providing for a seat of arbitration outside the DIFC. Justice…
In a recent ruling of 18 October 2012, the Dubai Court of Cassation, the highest court in the Emirate of Dubai, against whose judgments lies no further appeal, confirmed the enforcement of a trilogy of DIFC-LCIA awards – one on liability and two on costs (all forming part of the same reference) – rendered by…
As explored in some detail in Part I of this blog post, recent UAE supervisory court case law has heralded a new era of enforcement of international awards in strict compliance with the 1958 New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Awards (the “New York Convention”). To recap, the Maxtel line of…
International award creditors can now look with some measure of optimism to enforcing their awards against Middle Eastern stakeholders in the UAE. This is so following a recent spate of judgments of the UAE courts that have confirmed enforcement of foreign awards under the 1958 New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign…
On 6 March 2012, Justice Sir David Steel of the Court of First Instance of the Dubai International Financial Centre – DIFC – rendered a decision refusing to grant a stay of the proceedings, and ignoring an option in the underlying contract to opt out of the Court’s jurisdiction by referring to LCIA arbitration. In…
Last week I had the good fortune to attend a reception in Washington D.C. with various arbitration luminaries announcing the inauguration of the Jerusalem Arbitration Center. With almost $5 billion in annual trade between Palestine and Israel, it is imperative to establish a neutral forum for resolving business disputes. JAC is established under the auspices…
The International Bar Association annual conference in Dubai in November put the spotlight on the arbitral regime in Dubai. Several “hot topics” were discussed, including the possibility that counsel representing parties in arbitrations in Dubai would be charged a hefty fee by the Dubai government and the prospect of a new United Arab Emirates (UAE)…
Jerome Martin, Senior Associate at law firm Clyde & Co talks to Dubai Eye’s Business Breakfast radio show about Dispute Resolution in Saudi Arabia. I am posting this note and the link to listen to the podcast in full the for the benefit of our readers. “What chances you have if it all goes wrong…
There are two legal jurisdictions in Qatar with laws containing specific provisions related to arbitration: the State of Qatar and the Qatar Financial Center (the “QFC”). The latter is a separate jurisdiction with its own laws within the state. The QFC Law provides for the arbitration of commercial disputes in relation to contracts that have…
January 28, 2011 – violent protests rocked Egypt; February 2, 2011 – political anxiety and ongoing unrest in Egypt threaten to shake other economies; February 11, 2011 – Mubarak resigned. March 22, 2011 – fire at Egypt interior ministry; April 17, 2011 – ex-ministers to be tried. Recently, a significant amount of unrest has occurred…
At the recent Northwestern Law School conference on the Israeli-Arab Dispute and International Law I had the good fortune to address one of the few bright spots in current Arab-Israeli relations. Most international law scholars of the Arab-Israeli conflict seem to know little about international trade, and focus almost exclusively on the laws of war…
The most commonly used form of construction contract in the Gulf is the FIDIC form. Although the FIDIC forms, for project procurement and consultantcy services, progressed slowly over the years, culminating in the burst of colours in the suite of contracts issued in 1999, some parts of the Middle East still use the 1987 (Red…
Constructively, commercial arbitration is a judicially recognized and an enforced method of dispute resolution in the UAE. Via Article 203 (5) of the Civil Procedure Law (1992), if the parties have agreed to refer a dispute to arbitration, an action on that dispute cannot be brought before the courts. So let us assume for present…
On a first reading this might seem like a particularly narrow question. Perhaps geographically of limited utility. But to almost every international organization in the industrial, defence and major projects sectors it is, in fact, one of the burning issues confronting their participation in a market planning to spend or invest $USD450billion in 2010. In…
Professor Roger Alford’s recent posting, “The Arbitrator as Diplomat”, discusses the role of “diplomatic arbitration,” a concept with a long historical pedigree. Some of that history (and much more) is contained in the late Professor Douglas M. Johnston’s posthumous opus, The Historical Foundations of World Order: The Tower and the Arena (2008). The book was…
On Tuesday, the United States Supreme Court decided Iran v. Elahi, a case that appears to fall within a data set of one. As I reported elsewhere, the case is extraordinarily complex, focusing on whether a terrorist victim judgment creditor can attach a confirmed arbitration award rendered in Iran’s favor. Although it involves exotic issues…
“…so many construction disputes are now heading towards arbitration” remarks the calling notice for the next Society of Construction Law-Gulf event in Dubai in April. Around the world, the economic downturn is producing very many financial disputes. The speculation is that with the global recession deepening, the number of arbitrations is set to spiral upwards….
