Perhaps the one thing that is certain about the UK’s departure from the European Union is that it is uncertain. It is not certain that the UK and the EU will strike a deal on their future trading relationship after the UK leaves the EU on 29 March 2019; it is not known whether the…
The CERSA (CNRS-University Paris II Pantheon-Assas) organises a series of seminars on select topics in international investment law and investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). The purpose of these seminars is to discuss and debate such topics bringing together academics, practitioners and policymakers in a small international group in Paris. The conference about Topical issues in ISDS: Latin…
In our post last month, we discussed the potential impact of Brexit on the choice of law to govern a contract and the law applicable to non-contractual claims. We also discussed that parties and party counsels should consider revisiting their choice of law strategies, but that in doing so, they should be conscious of the…
Part I For some time practitioners would have seen news alerts headlining that third-party funding is now permitted in Singapore and Hong Kong for arbitration and arbitration-related court proceedings. Digging a little deeper beyond the shiny new labels, this article highlights three practical “pitfalls’ which practitioners would have to be mindful of when dealing with…
Introduction On 10 October 2018, the Singapore Court of Appeal (“Court of Appeal”) issued its decision on the case of Marty Ltd v Hualon Corporation (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd [2018] SGCA 63 (“Marty v Hualon“) which concerned a dispute over the repudiation of an arbitration agreement. While the case contained a number of interesting issues, this…
Introduction In October 1865, Sir Robert Hart, a former British diplomat and by then an official in the Qing Chinese Government, wrote to Empress Dowager Cixi expressing his opinion that China should desperately seek progress through investments in mining, the telegraph, the telephone and especially in railways. The reaction of Empress Cixi’s closest advisors was…
The recent Petrobras – Lava Jato government fraud scandal that hit Brazil hard and swept through other Latin American countries has also greatly affected Perú. According to Marcelo Odebrecht (a Brazilian businessman and the former CEO of Latin America’s largest construction company), more than US$29m was paid in bribes between 2005 and 2014 in Perú…
The Court of Justice of the European Union’s (CJEU) judgment in Slovak Republic v. Achmea B.V. (Achmea) on arbitration under intra-EU BITs has been broadly discussed (on this blog, see e.g. here, here, here, here, here, here and here). Nine months after the Court’s ruling, some tribunals have had the opportunity to react. Food for…
The Prague Rules on the Efficient Conduct of Proceedings in International Arbitration will be officially launched this week (December 14). This set of rules of evidence and procedure formulated from civil law practices has already generated a substantial and healthy debate within the international arbitration community, including here on the Kluwer blog, on whether they…
Introduction The assessment of human rights within an investment arbitration framework, typical for the investor-state dispute resolution (ISDS) mechanism, is one of the topics which has gained significant momentum in the past years, and has led even to the establishment of a Working Group on International Arbitration of Business and Human Rights. Arbitral tribunals often…
In a conventional investment dispute, the claimant seeks compensation for the impairment of its substantive investment in the territory of the host state. Swissbourgh Diamond Mines (Pty) Ltd v Lesotho arose out of mining investments made by the claimants in Lesotho in the 1990s. However, this arbitral proceeding was not concerned directly with the impairment…
We are happy to inform you that the latest issue of the journal is now available and includes the following contributions: Gordon Blanke, Free Zone Arbitration in the United Arab Emirates: DIFC v. ADGM (Part II) This is Part II of a two-part article that deals with the phenomenon of free zone arbitration in the…
With 2018 drawing to a close, the UAE legislature has ushered in a long-awaited amendment to Art. 257 of the UAE Penal Code (see Decree issuing Federal Law No. (24) of 2018 amending certain provisions of the Federal Law no. (3) of 1987 issuing the Penal Code). Readers of Kluwer Blog will remember that that…
Document production is one of the most important and controversial topics in international arbitration. Some practitioners consider the document production as “an essential element of justice”, whereas some others consider it as “a waste of time and money”. So, where does the truth lie? Does Common Law Provide Better Justice than Civil Law or Vice…
I. Introduction Despite the fact that commercial arbitration has experienced a huge development in Brazil in the last years and a general favorable approach by Brazilian courts, there are fields in which arbitration is still incipient, with complex discussions about its enforceability and to what extent consumer, labor or adhesion contracts can be discussed via…
Introduction On 8 October 2018, the Ministry of Justice (the “MoJ”) of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (“Saudi Arabia”) announced that in the last 12 months its enforcement courts received a record-breaking 257 applications for enforcement of judgments and arbitral awards rendered outside Saudi Arabia, which were appraised at SAR 3.6 billion or “nearly one…
Jay-Z changed the rap game. Can he change the arbitration game? In a new lawsuit, the rap star (legal name: Shawn C. Carter) seems to be trying. Carter has recently won a temporary order staying arbitration for a dispute in New York. The memorandum of law in support of the petition for a stay (filed…
The arbitrator’s duty of disclosure is often subject to misunderstandings, particularly in regards to its content and scope, as well as its relationship with the independence and impartiality of the arbitrator. That is why for almost a decade I have been raising in my publications, both on international commercial arbitration and investment arbitration, various criteria…
Two initiatives concerning arbitration costs have filled a few column inches over the past several months. The first of these is a fairly straightforward cost-cutting initiative with immediate tangible benefits, while the second is likely to be something of a slow burner. Starting with the first, more simple example, the American Arbitration Association (‘AAA’) has…
For AfricArb It is twelve years since an ICSID tribunal dismissed World Duty Free’s claim against the Republic of Kenya for breach of a lease agreement signed in 1989. As is well known, the claimant obtained the contract with a $2 million bribe to former President Moi, and the tribunal held, inter alia, that it…
“Mediating is, in the end, service. Humility is its fertile soil.” Bill Marsh in “David Richbell – Lessons in Life and Mediation” The last couple of months have offered a collection of compelling posts on the Kluwer Mediation Blog. From the analysis of court decisions in Canada and Singapore on the enforcement of mediated settlement…
This year ArbitralWomen (AW) celebrates its 25th Anniversary. Founded in 1993, AW is a network of women from diverse backgrounds and legal cultures active in international dispute resolution in any role, including, arbitrator, mediator, expert, adjudicator, surveyor, facilitator, lawyer, neutral, ombudswoman or forensic consultant. With close to a thousand members from over 40 countries, AW has…
Over the last century, arbitration has established itself as one of the most popular means for resolving commercial disputes1) Gary B. Born, ‘Chapter 1: Overview of International Commercial Arbitration’, International Commercial Arbitration (2nd edition, Kluwer Law International 2014), 6–224, at 93-97; Queen Mary University London, 2015 International Arbitration Survey: Improvements and Innovations in Arbitration. and…
International investment agreements (IIAs) are divided into two types: (1) bilateral investment treaties and (2) treaties with investment provisions. I would primarily focus on the first category i.e. bilateral investment treaties. A bilateral investment treaty (BIT) is an agreement between two countries regarding the promotion and protection of investments made by investors from one country…
