On 23 July 2024, an ICSID arbitral tribunal in the case Klesch Group v. Germany issued a decision on provisional measures directing the respondent State to refrain from collecting certain windfall profits tax in order to protect the exclusivity of the ICSID arbitral proceedings and the status quo between the parties. This post will summarize…

Part One of this blog post discussed how uncertainty can arise in determining the Limitations laws that apply in international commercial arbitration proceedings. Part Two will now discuss some potential solutions.   One Solution The United Kingdom modified the traditional common law approach with the enactment of the Foreign Limitation Periods Act 1984 (UK), which…

This two-part blog post discusses applicable limitation laws, i.e., legislation purporting to limit the time period within which claims in international commercial arbitration proceedings must be commenced (Limitation laws). It raises questions regarding how arbitral tribunals ought to decide whether to apply such Limitation laws and whether attempts to classify them as matters of ‘substance’…

The use of “guerrilla tactics” is by no means a new phenomenon in the world of international arbitration. Indeed, such strategies have been the subject of a number of articles, scholarly discussions and even a four hundred-page book. What is meant by this expression, in essence, is the use and abuse of the procedural rules…

On 5 May 2022, Young ITF hosted its launch event, covering a debate on the motion that “[t]his House believes that greater use of Amicus briefs will address the legitimacy crisis that [Investor-State-Dispute-Settlement (“ISDS”)] is facing”. The selection of this topic seemed reasonable as the legitimacy crisis of ISDS particularly affects the upcoming generation of…

In the last three decades, the advent of investment treaty arbitration and more recently third-party funding have led to an exponential rise in the number of international arbitrations pursued by private parties against sovereign States. Against this background, on March 28, 2022, as part of Paris Arbitration Week, Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle hosted the…

The 2021 ICC Arbitration Rules introduce new procedures, update key provisions, and formalize the existing practices of the ICC Secretariat and the Court in order to allow for greater flexibility, efficiency and transparency in the administration of ICC arbitration cases. We will focus in this post on the changes made under the new Rules to…

This is the second of a two-part blog post series for an upcoming publication titled International Arbitration and the COVID-19 Revolution edited by us. As detailed in Part 1 of this series, the book contains 17 chapters from 31 leading international arbitration practitioners. The focus of the contributions range from procedural topics in international arbitration…

The COVID-19 pandemic has exerted an unprecedented impact on individuals, entities, businesses, and states. National court systems and alternative dispute resolution regimes have also been severely affected. Yet, international arbitration has demonstrated itself to be both adaptable and resilient throughout the crisis and emerged more strongly positioned as a method of dispute resolution for a…

The Summer 2020 Kluwer Arbitration Quiz was met with a very enthusiastic response: 271 submissions from around the world! The quiz focused on how the conduct of arbitrations may differ, depending on industries and regions, as revealed by data collected to date by Arbitrator Intelligence. That data is collected through responses submitted by parties and…

Over the past decade, many arbitrators and international arbitration practitioners have seen a consistent increase in parties’ interest in bringing dispositive motions within the context of the arbitration proceedings. Some commentators—especially from common law traditions—suggest that such motions should play a more prominent role in international arbitration. In the same time frame, as discussed below,…

In a recent post, we were told to ‘Roll Out the Red Carpet’ for the Hague Rules on Business and Human Rights Arbitration (the “Rules”). Indeed, the Rules are a new development within the field to assist with disputes relating to human rights and their violations. Following a process of draft reports and public consultations,…

In an industry which thrives on lofty ideals of amicable dispute resolution and open debate, it is startling to observe that the environmental impact involved in the conduct of international arbitrations has received little attention.  This is not to suggest that the international arbitration community has completely ignored the issue, but the focus has been…

Background – The Pandemic is Confirmed As cases of COVID-19, the pathogen associated with the coronavirus outbreak, are reported in rising numbers in countries around the world, the likelihood of a worsening global impact looms. This past Wednesday, the World Health Organization officially declared the outbreak a global pandemic. In the course of just a…

Introduction Even a cursory analysis of the history of the procedural rules of leading arbitral institutions demonstrates that procedural rules are increasing in number and becoming ever more comprehensive in their scope. Institutional rules now cover, largely without exception, joinder, consolidation, emergency arbitrator provisions, and expedited procedures. And adding to this, as institutions seeking to…

This is an introduction to the so-called “Final Offer Arbitration” (FOA), sometimes also referred to as pendulum or baseball arbitration. FOA is a model of arbitration that originated in the late 1940s and consolidated in the 1970s in the USA to resolve labour disputes in the public sector and the baseball league, hence the name….

On my latest post, I addressed the announcement of the upcoming Inquisitorial Rules on the Taking of Evidence in International Arbitration (“The Prague Rules”) as a reaction to the alleged “Creeping Americanisation of international arbitration”, represented by the IBA Rules on the Taking of Evidence in International Arbitration (“IBA Rules”). In this post, I will…

On May 29, 2010, the International Bar Association (“IBA”) adopted the IBA Rules on the Taking of Evidence in International Arbitration (“IBA Rules”), a revised version of the original 1999 version which, in turn, had replaced the IBA Supplementary Rules Governing the Presentation and Reception of Evidence in International Commercial Arbitrationof 1983. Even though the…

Having disposed of yet another forest worth of pristine hearing bundles, I wonder: when will arbitration finally go paperless? Gillian Lemaire asked the same question in a 2014 piece called “Where Do We Stand?” She looked at the legal and factual obstacles that paperless arbitrations face. Finding that, in reality, there were few, she proposed…

The decisive underlying reasoning (motifs, Begründung) is, without doubt, an essential part of any arbitral award and as such bears the potential of frustrating parties and arbitrators alike. On the one hand, elaborate reasoning in arbitral awards more often than not comes at the price of long waiting periods for the issuance of the awards,…

Over the past few decades, responding to the need to control the growing costs and time of arbitration proceedings, the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce (“ICC Court”) has continuously sought to achieve greater efficiency of the ICC arbitration proceedings (examples of such efforts can be found on the links available…

Time and cost efficiency is the most commonly praised argument in favor of arbitration as opposed to state court litigation. The exchanges within the arbitral community as regards strategies to streamline arbitral proceedings in an effort to increase their efficiency are abundant. The issue, quite apparently, ranks high on the hot topic lists of counsel…

A foundational principle of international commercial arbitration is that of party autonomy. Article 19(1) of the UNCITRAL Model Law reflects this and states: “Subject to the provisions of this Law, the parties are free to agree on the procedure to be followed by the arbitral tribunal in conducting the proceedings.” Notwithstanding the parties’ broad freedom…