On the third day of Hong Kong Arbitration Week, the ADR in Asia Conference took place, featuring a morning panel on China’s Inbound and Outbound Investment: Impact on Disputes. Panelists provided regional insights into the evolving landscape of international investment disputes. The panelists shared their regional perspectives on the evolving landscape of international investment. Meg…
The English Arbitration Bill, introduced to UK Parliament in November 2023, aimed to ensure that the Arbitration Act 1996 remained fit for purpose and maintained England’s status as a leading destination for commercial arbitration. However, the bill was lost when the 2024 UK general election was called. In July 2024 the new government reintroduced the…
The advantages of exclusive jurisdiction agreements (“EJAs”) are well known; chiefly, that of knowing where a party can sue and be sued. In Brazil, EJAs are widely used in both cross border litigation and in the context of domestic contractual relations. Even in contracts providing for arbitration, it is typical for sophisticated parties to agree…
The fifth edition of the Bucharest Arbitration Days (“BArD”) took place on 6 and 7 June 2024. It set out to highlight recent critical developments in international arbitration. The first day focused on commercial arbitration, and the second on investment arbitration. The general consensus? Mission accomplished. Seven panels and two keynotes reunited seasoned experts as…
Introduction This article explores the latest development of the People’s Republic of China’s jurisprudence regarding asymmetrical arbitration agreements. (Cambodia) Fiber Optic Communication Network Co., Ltd. v. China Development Bank (2022) Jing 74 Min Te No. 4 (“Fiber Optic v. CDB”), a recent case adjudicated by the Beijing Financial Court in October 2022 and made public…
The global fight against climate change demands a swift transition to cleaner energy sources. Underscoring this urgency, the 28th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (also known as the “Paris Agreement”) (“COP 28“), held in Dubai in November 2023, called for ambitious goals. At this conference, nearly 200…
The Supreme Court decision of January 24, 2024 granted the exequatur of a foreign arbitration award and authorized it to be enforced in Chile (the “Decision”). The Decision reaffirms the basic “pro-international arbitration” and “minimal intervention” principles, that posit Chile as an arbitral-friendly jurisdiction so that it could be selected as the seat of many…
The first Riyadh International Disputes Week (“RIDW”) presents an excellent occasion for international, regional, and local experts and practitioners to meet and exchange their views regarding salient developments in the various areas of dispute resolution. The upcoming Saudi Center for Commercial Arbitration Third International Conference and Arbitration (“SCCA24”) on 6 March 2024, which is scheduled…
The English High Court (“Court“) in Hulley Enterprises Limited and others v. Russian Federation [2023] EWHC 2704 (Comm) has recently dismissed a jurisdictional challenge brought by the Russian Federation (“Russia“), concluding that the State could not invoke sovereign immunity to resist enforcement of arbitral awards, which were issued in 2014 in favour of the former…
The third edition of the annual Uzbek Arbitration Week (UzAW 2023), held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan between 10-15 September 2023, continued its mission to establish Uzbekistan as the preferred seat for arbitral proceedings in the CIS region and beyond. The flagship conference “Putting Uzbekistan on Global Arbitration Map” organized by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry…
The 78th session of the UNCITRAL Working Group II (the “WG II”) took place in Vienna, Austria from 18 to 22 September 2023. The WG II is currently considering proposals for future work on technology-related dispute resolution and adjudication. In this post, we report on the key discussions from this session, in particular on the…
Ecuador distanced itself from the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (“ICSID”) system more than a decade ago. During this period, Ecuador withdrew from all its bilateral investment treaties (“BITs”) and the 1966 Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States (“ICSID Convention” or “Convention”). In August 2021,…
On December 30, 2022, the Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China (“SPC”) released its 36th batch of six guiding cases, all of which relate to the judicial review of arbitration awards. Our previous article focused on the first three guiding cases (Guiding Cases 196, 197, and 198) which addressed several critical issues…
On 29 June 2023, the Conference focusing on “Convergence of Arbitration and Litigation“, organized by the German Federal Ministry of Justice (“BMJ”) and the German Arbitration Institute (“DIS”) took place at the Karlsruhe castle. Around 100 attendees from various legal professions and three panels discussed whether the two dispute resolution mechanisms of arbitration and litigation are…
Pathological clauses are not an infrequent occurrence in the arbitration world. We often see arbitration clauses which are poorly drafted and may result in rendering the clause inoperable. Being able to predict how a court would treat a pathological clause would help the parties and specifically the party wishing to file proceedings decide whether they…
Subscribers to KluwerArbitration enjoy access to the ICCA Yearbook Commercial Arbitration. The first upload of materials for the 2023 volume of ICCA’s Yearbook Commercial Arbitration is now available on the KluwerArbitration database, with 27 court decisions from 12 countries. Here are some of the highlights. The European Court of Human Rights in BTS Holding v….
28 U.S.C. § 1782(a) allows U.S. federal district courts to order discovery against any person or entity “found” in the U.S. “for use” in a proceeding in a “foreign or international tribunal” upon application by “any interested person.” In 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court in Intel Corp. v. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. held that the…
Investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) has been widely criticized for being a tool in the hands of multinational companies, used to challenge domestic public policy measures even when legitimately adopted in the public interest. Critiques have been notable concerning the asymmetrical nature of international investment agreements (IIAs). While IIAs were concluded to afford protection to foreign…
A seminar on 10 November 2023 during Australian Arbitration Week discussed “Australia’s engagement in the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) reform process”. My presentation divided successive governments’ approach into three significant eras over the last decade: anti-ISDS (2011-13), case-by-case ISDS (2014-2021), and uncertainty (since 2022). Some uncertainty has dissipated since the seminar. On 14 November 2022,…
A slate of recent cases reminded us how important are the doctrines of res judicata and/or collateral estoppel. Put simply, res judicata is known as claim preclusion because a judicial judgment or arbitral award deciding a particular “claim” will be binding on the parties who participated in that proceeding, whereas collateral estoppel is known as…
India’s Parliamentary Committee on External Affairs (the “PCEA”) recently submitted two reports to the Parliament relating to bilateral investment treaties (“BITs”). The first report –submitted in December 2021 – contained a broad review of India’s engagement with BITs and made several recommendations. The second report – submitted in July 2022 – took note of the…
This contribution comments on growing global trends in climate change and the important role arbitration can play in the settlement of this type of dispute, specifically in the future dispute resolution landscape in Latin America. In June 2022, the Center for Climate Change Economics and Policy (CCCEP) and the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change…
Various Pacific Island states have become involved in deep seabed mining (“DSM”) in order to reap the allegedly significant benefits to be obtained from extractive activities in the international seabed (“the Area”). According to the government of Nauru, such gains include “employment; training; capacity building; technology transfer; foreign investment; increased tax revenue; and national self-determination”….
Organized by the Georgetown International Arbitration Society and the Georgetown Brazilian Law Association, in cooperation with the Arbitration Channel, the I Georgetown Brazilian Arbitration Day took place on April 8, 2022. The first edition of the conference discussed some of the main topics of interest in international arbitration as well as the latest developments in…
