In William Lim and Another v. Hung Ka Hai Clement and Others [2016] HKCFI 1439; HCA 1282/2016 (24 August 2016), the Hong Kong Court of First Instance ordered a stay of court proceedings and referred an ongoing dispute to arbitration pursuant to s 20 (1) of the Arbitration Ordinance (Cap 609). The Court found that…
For more than a decade, Argentina has been living in a permanent crisis, which affected all sectors of the economy and turned out in an avalanche of investment cases, many of them under the ICSID Convention. Thus, Argentina became one of the most active players in the investor-state dispute settlement system, facing almost 60 cases…
On 28 July 2016, in a judgment of Justice Sir Jeremy Cooke (see CFI 020/2016 – Brookfield Multiplex Constructions LLC v. (1) DIFC Investments LLC (2) Dubai International Financial Centre Authority, ruling of the DIFC Court of First Instance of 28 July 2016), the DIFC Court of First Instance ruled, in principle, in favour of…
Can an international arbitral tribunal admit emails and documents as evidence if these documents were obtained by hacking a computer network? The ICSID tribunal in Caratube International Oil Company and Mr Devincci Saleh Hourani v Kazakhstan (ICSID Case No. ARB/13/13) held, “in principle Yes”, in a decision which is not yet published but has been…
McGill University Faculty of Law was delighted to receive more than 70 submissions from scholars and junior practitioners affiliated with more than 60 institutions for the 2016 Nappert Prize in International Arbitration. After an initial review, anonymized versions of more than half of the submitted papers – written by students from some two dozen countries…
In August 2013, Judge Hellerstein of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York granted the enforcement of an award rendered in Mexico between Comissa (Corporación Mexicana De Mantenimiento Integral, S. De R.L. De C.V.) and PEMEX (Pemex‐Exploración Y Production) in favor of Comissa awarding it $300 million; an award that had…
Increasingly overburdened Courts have constrained access to judicial remedies for civil disputes in India. To enable expeditious settlement of commercial disputes, the Government of India issued the Commercial Courts, Commercial Division and Commercial Appellate Division of High Courts Act, 2015 (“Act”). It envisages the establishment of separate commercial Courts to hear arbitral disputes, amongst other…
In a very recent decision (Case Identification Number 7854-2013), the Chilean Supreme Court recognized and authorized the enforcement in Chile of an arbitral award made by a Sole Arbitrator in an ICC arbitration conducted in The Hague, Netherlands. The award ordered Sociedad Contractual Minera Santa Fe, a Chilean mining company (“Minera Santa Fe”), to pay…
The topic of Brexit is front-page news around the world, but there is a noticeable absence of expert commentary on its implications for the world of international arbitration. Accordingly, the Editors at Kluwer Arbitration Blog welcome the submission of guest posts on the topic of Brexit and international arbitration. Topics might include London as a…
Switzerland is a global hub for commodity traders, and therefore also a significant jurisdiction for disputes arising in the commodities sector. A recent decision of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court (Decision 5A_441/2015 of 4 February 2016 (ASA Bull. 2/2016)) addresses important issues relating to commodity sales contracts and Swiss enforcement proceedings. The case involved arbitral proceedings…
Following up on a recent post by Daniela Palacios on 24 May 2016 titled “Emelec vs Canal Uno: How Many Bites Can the Apple Handle?”, this article explores: (i) Ecuadorian courts’ historic approach to the availability of cassation (recurso de casación) against decisions that resolve annulment proceedings of arbitral awards, (ii) the change of approach…
It is generally accepted that arbitral tribunals enjoy a “liberty of decision”, which I have suggested as meaning, “the freedom of the arbitral tribunal from external restraint, compulsion, or interference in making its decision…”[1] Such a right may be viewed as a facet of the justiciable right to freedom of expression, since the exercise of…
A few months ago a piece was published on the Kluwer blog on s. 69 of the English Arbitration Act, a provision which gives a party to an English-seated arbitration a limited right of appeal on a point of law (absent an agreement to the contrary with its contractual counterparty). Based on a review of…
In a decision dated 16 March 2016 (4A_628/2015), the Swiss Supreme Court decided the long-open question of the consequence of a failure to comply with a mandatory pre-tier to arbitration, finding that such failure leads to the stay of the arbitration proceedings until the pre-arbitral tier has been conducted. The modalities of the stay (in…
In a highly anticipated judgment which was handed down on 20 April 2016, The Hague District Court (the “Court”) set aside the $50 billion Yukos awards rendered against the Russian Federation in arbitration proceedings administered by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. The Court, which was competent to hear Russia’s claim in the…
Preliminary determinations provide a potential mechanism to streamline proceedings, but should be used with caution. This article examines the increased attention given to preliminary determinations in international arbitration. First, it explains what preliminary determinations are and how they differ from summary judgment procedures. Second, it examines the change in recent years, in the use of…
A recent order of an ICSID tribunal in the US$1.4 billion dispute regarding Argentina’s nationalisation of two airlines brings to the focus the ways and means of States to conduct the arbitration proceedings in bad faith. Indeed, the complaints by the Claimants highlight some of the tools of the toolbox which are available to…
A tribunal in an investor-state arbitration under the SCC rules issued an award on 21 January 2016, in Charanne B.V, & Construction Investments S.A.R.L vs The Kingdom of Spain, the first of a series of cases arising from reforms Spain made in the renewable energy sector. The tribunal found that regulatory measures modifying the feed-in…
Harris Bor, Barrister, Wilberforce Chambers, London On 9 March 2016, Lord Thomas, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, delivered the Bailii lecture on “Rebalancing the Relationship between the Courts and Arbitration”. In it he claims that arbitration is hindering the development of the common law by taking cases away from national courts and…
No less than two years ago, in a series of related judgments (the NML Ltd et al. v the Republic of Argentina saga), the French Court of cassation gave greater protection to state immunity from execution.1)G. Travaini, State 1 – Investor 0: Recent French Decisions regarding Sovereign Immunity from Execution, Kluwer Arbitration Blog (27 August…
Bruchou, Fernandez Madero & Lombardi Abogados Until recently, recognition and enforcement of investment awards remained untested before Argentine courts. This changed in 2015. On August 18, 2015, Chamber A of the National Court of Appeals on Commercial Matters, rendered a judgment on the recognition of an ICSID award in the court case “CCI – Compañía…
The ICC’s adoption, on 12 February 2016, of a “Guidance Note for the disclosure of conflicts by arbitrators,” which “aims at ensuring that arbitrators are forthcoming and transparent in their disclosure of potential conflicts” (See ICC Press Release dated 23.2.2016, “ICC Court adopts Guidance Note on conflict disclosures by arbitrators”), is a development of interest…
In recent years, ICSID has provided an increasing level of detail and transparency about the practice and procedure of ICSID Convention and ICSID Additional Facility arbitrations. The ICSID Secretariat has done so in a variety of ways: on its website, in Annual Reports, in The ICSID Caseload: Statistics, as well as in one-day primers it…
The last several years have witnessed a tremendous increase in the participation of third-party funders in international arbitration. A growing number of claimants are seeking external funding, either because they lack the necessary funds to commence arbitration proceedings (which are becoming increasingly more expensive) or because they want to maintain cash-flow and offset the risk…
