On 13 January 2011, the Belgian Supreme Court (Cour de cassation/Hof van cassatie) ruled that an arbitral award could be set aside by a Belgian judge on the basis of a contradiction in the award’s motivation. In so ruling, the Belgian Supreme Court took a view opposite to that of the French Supreme Court (Cour…
When the Arbitrazh Court of Kemerovo Region in Siberia granted leave to recognize an annulled ICC award in 2011 for the first time, international and domestic commentators rushed to acclaim the new arbitration-friendly attitude of the Russian courts, thus placing Russia ‘into line with a select number of jurisdictions’ (e.g. France and the Netherlands). Some…
International consciousness that India is an arbitration unfriendly jurisdiction has existed for some time now. This feeling owes in part to seemingly interventionist judicial views, in part to the delays that are oft complained of about the Indian judicial system and in part to the lack of infrastructure necessary for any arbitration friendly destination. This…
In 1961, three years after the adoption of the New York Convention, the European Convention on International Commercial Arbitration was adopted in Geneva (the Geneva Convention). At the time, the Geneva Convention was noteworthy as being the first international instrument to refer to “international commercial arbitration” by name. Today, however, many practitioners give little consideration…
In Galsworthy Ltd of the Republic of Liberia v Glory of Wealth Shipping Pte Ltd [2010] SGHC 304 (“Galsworthy”), the Singapore High Court held that a losing party to an arbitration seeking to challenge an arbitral award had the “alternative and not cumulative options” of applying to set aside the award, or, applying to set…
In a recent decision, the Swiss Supreme Court examined whether contractual provisions contemplating certain procedural steps before initiating arbitration proceedings impacted the jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal (Case no. 4A_46/2011 of 16 May 2011, to be published in ASA Bulletin, 2011. English translation to be published in Swiss International Arbitration Law Reports, 2011). The contract,…
Last year, around this time, I offered a list of 10 investor-state arbitral awards I hoped to see in 2010. If time permits, I may do another list for 2011. But, first I thought I’d take a look back at last year’s list and offer a brief update on those cases. Rather, than do all…
Even casual observers of American arbitration law will have encountered the “manifest disregard of the law” doctrine. It has been invoked for decades by litigants seeking to set aside (vacate) an award under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). The doctrine is just one example of why the regime affecting commercial arbitration in the United States…
