Annulment, BIT, ICSID, ICSID Arbitration, ICSID Convention, Investment, Investment Arbitration, Investment protection, Investor, Investor-State arbitration, ISDS, Zimbabwe

(NL-Investmentconsulting)/ /Leave a comment

Recently, it was reported that after 14 years since Zimbabwe had illegally evicted Dutch farmers from their farms, it finally agreed to pay the damages awarded under the ICSID award, which dates back in 2009. In the Funnekotter et al case, the arbitral tribunal rejected Zimbabwe’s necessity defence, which was based on the claimed need…

Arbitration, Class arbitration, Consumer disputes

(Pepper Hamilton LLP)/ /Leave a comment

The latest large consumer data breach, this time involving Equifax, has also shed a sharp light on an ongoing controversy about consumers’ access to justice. In taking steps to ameliorate its PR crisis, Equifax found itself right in the middle of the dispute about class actions and arbitration clauses. On September 7, Equifax revealed that…

Kluwer Arbitration Blog

(Stockholm University)/ /Leave a comment

The Editorial Board of Kluwer Arbitration Blog announces the opening of the following positions with Kluwer Arbitration Blog: Assistant Editor for Europe, Assistant Editor for Asia (Hong Kong and PR China) and Assistant Editor for Africa. The Assistant Editors report directly to the Associate Editors and are expected to (1) collect, edit and review guest…

Arbitration, Interview

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Young ICCA

Gretta Walters is an Associate at Chaffetz Lindsey LLP in New York, where she represents individual and corporate clients in international and cross-border disputes in arbitration and in state and federal court. She has experience in arbitral proceedings under the arbitration rules of the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC),…

India, Singapore Court of Appeal, Unilateral Clauses

, (NALSAR University of Law)/ /3 Comments
Young ICCA

The decision of the Singapore Court of Appeal in Wilson Taylor Asia Pacific Pte Ltd v. Dyna-Jet Pte Ltd ([2017] SGCA 32) added another chapter to the debate on the validity of unilateral option clauses (or ‘sole option clauses’) in contracts. The Singapore Court of Appeal reaffirmed the Singapore High Court’s decision to uphold the…

Arbitrability, Arbitral Award, Arbitral Tribunal, Arbitration, Arbitration Act, Arbitration Agreement, India

(Avsai Legal)/ /Leave a comment

Non-arbitrability of disputes is a ground for setting aside the arbitral awards under Sections 34(2)(b) and 48(2) of the Arbitration and Conciliation act 1996 (the “Act”), the award is against the public policy of India. Arbitrability, here, refers to the objective arbitrability of the disputes, i.e., whether the national law imposes any restriction on the…

Arbitral Tribunal, Arbitration, Arbitration Act, India

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YIAG

This post critically examines the recent Supreme Court judgment in TRF Limited vs. Energo Engineering Private Limited where the court held that a person who is ineligible to be appointed as an arbitrator cannot even nominate an arbitrator. This judgment was in the context of a unilateral arbitration clause (“unilateral clause”) in which one party…

Kluwer Mediation Blog, Mediation

(Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary University of London)/ /1 Comment

From cultural confusion to cognitive biases and recent apology legislation in Hong Kong, the recent posts on the Kluwer Mediation Blog continue to address a compelling assortment of topics. In Cultural Confusion – A Good Thing for Mediation?, Nadja Alexander shares an encounter she had with a group of mediators to highlight the cultural confusion…

Arbitration, DIFC, Dubai

(Blanke Arbitration LLC)/ /Leave a comment

This is the final one in sequel of four parts on the status of the DIFC Courts as a conduit jurisdiction. It reports on a further number of recent decisions of the Dubai-DIFC Judicial Committee – also known as the Judicial Tribunal or in shorthand the JT – that question the DIFC Courts’ role as…

Arbitration, Arbitration Act, Hungary

(Taylor Wessing Budapest)/ /Leave a comment
Young ICCA

The Hungarian Parliament has recently adopted a new Act on Arbitration, which will enter into force on 1 January 2018 (the Act). The new Act (based on the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration as amended in 2006 (the Model Law)) implements changes that are likely to have a considerable impact on the Hungarian…

Kluwer Arbitration Blog

(Stockholm University)/ /Leave a comment

The Editorial Board of Kluwer Arbitration Blog announces the opening of the following positions with Kluwer Arbitration Blog: Assistant Editor for Europe, Assistant Editor for Asia (Hong Kong and PR China) and Assistant Editor for Africa. The Assistant Editors report directly to the Associate Editors and are expected to (1) collect, edit and review guest…

ISDS, Umbrella clause, Uncategorized

(FERRERE Abogados)/ /Leave a comment

In December 2015, I published an article examining whether there was a trend towards the elimination of umbrella clauses from investment agreements, be they bilateral, multilateral, or model investment treaties. By that time, model bilateral investment treaties (BITs) from the United States, France, Canada, Colombia, and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and many prominent…

BIT, Denunciation, Ecuador, ICSID Arbitration, South America

(Locke Lord LLP)/ /Leave a comment

“BITs and arbitration centers, such as ICSID, are an expression of an unjust moral order”, said Ecuador’s former President, Rafael Correa, back in 2014. Such animadversion led the country to denounce all its bilateral investment treaties (BITs) earlier this year. The Latin American nation’s feud with BITs and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment…

Arbitration, Brexit, China, Hong Kong, United States

(Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre )/ /Leave a comment
HK45

Recent political developments have resulted in considerable geopolitical uncertainty and presented challenges to the international order. With the UK’s vote to exit the European Union, the election of Donald Trump as US president, the Western sanctions against Russia, and the rising North Korea nuclear tensions, 2017 ushers in a turbulent time where commercial parties’ usual…

Arbitration Institutions and Rules, Maritime Arbitration, Russia

(Redstone Chambers)/ /Leave a comment

In January 2017, the new Rules of the Maritime Arbitration Commission at the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry were adopted (“MAC Rules”). The Rules implement new regulations which comply with the latest tendencies in arbitration. MAC was established in 1930 in Soviet Russia and since then it administered about 4,500 disputes. In 2016 –…

Enforcement, Enforcement of an arbitration clause, England, English courts

, , (Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP)/ /1 Comment

A recent decision by the English Court shows once again the very high bar that a claimant must reach to enforce an award that had been set aside by the court at the seat of jurisdiction. The judgment handed down in Maximov v OJSC Novolipetsky Metallurgichesky Kombinat [2017] EWHC 1911 (Comm) on 27 July 2017…

Arbitration, Eastern Europe, Fair and Equitable Treatment, Investment, Investment Arbitration, Investment protection, Investor, Investor-State arbitration, Switzerland

(Bottega Di Bella)/ /6 Comments

In the 2000s, mortgages in Swiss Franc (CHF) were very popular among consumers in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe for the acquisition of both private and commercial properties, as the CHF was a stable and reliable currency and offered lower interest rates than loans in Euro or in local currencies. When on 15 January 2015…

Achmea, BIT, European Commission, European Law, European Union

(Omnia Strategy LLP)/ /Leave a comment

I. Introduction On 19 September 2017 the Advocate General (AG) to the Court of Justice to the European Union (CJEU) Melchior Wathelet delivered his long-awaited Opinion in Case C-284/16 Slowakische Republik v Achmea BV. As already explained in another post, Bundesgerichtshof (“German Federal Court of Justice”) requested a preliminary ruling from the CJEU on the…

Arbitral Tribunal, Arbitration, Arbitration Institutions and Rules, Cybersecurity

(Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP)/ /1 Comment
Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP

Cybersecurity bears particular significance to the realm of international arbitration. In addition to the ambient cybersecurity risks faced by each participant in international arbitral proceedings, the need to share information between the parties, the tribunal and the institution for the resolution of a dispute increases the likelihood that data will be lost or breached. Arbitral…

International Commercial Arbitration, Investment Arbitration, Podcast

(Arbitration Chambers) and (Mannheimer Swartling)/ /1 Comment

Information dissemination is the flavor of the decade. Processing information with our busy lives has become harder than ever and companies are hard at work to ensure knowledge reaches as many people around the globe as possible. These efforts are not without their threats. The rise of what might be called the “fake news” movement…

Arbitration, Legitimacy, Unconscious Bias

(University of Missouri School of Law)/ /3 Comments

Over the last few years, legitimacy has become a hot topic in international arbitration. Although the investment regime has borne the brunt of the attack, commercial proceedings have also suffered from criticism. The range of voices questioning the propriety of arbitration has been at times quite diverse and has included journalists, judges, governments and human…

BIT, Cambodia, Investment, Investment Arbitration, Investor-State arbitration, ISDS

(Sciences Po)/ /1 Comment

The year 1993 saw a significant political transition in Cambodia through the adoption of democratic principles and free market economy. Since then, many legal reforms have been made in order to attract foreign direct investment, and one of which is providing a legal framework for protecting the investment. To date, the Kingdom has signed a…

Asia-Pacific, Australia, Construction arbitration, Islamic Finance Disputes, Malaysia, Seat of the arbitration, Shari‘a, South Korea

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Herbert Smith Freehills

Singapore and Hong Kong are now considered to be amongst the top arbitration seats in the world, rivalling the long-established seats of London, Paris and Geneva. Perpetuating their dominance in the region, parties to contracts in the Asia-Pacific often choose either of these seats by default with no consideration of alternatives. This is underpinned, to…

Arbitration, China, CIETAC, Investment, Portugal

(PLMJ - Sociedade de Advogados, RL)/ /Leave a comment

With Manuel Castelo-Branco, Carlos Aguiar, Francisco Prol, Paula Costa e Silva, Carlos Alberto Carmona, Duarte G. Henriques, Sofia Vale, João Ribeiro-Bidaoui, and João Vilhena Valério The massive programme of investments that will take place under the “One Belt, one Road” (OBOR) initiative of the People’s Republic of China leaves no one indifferent. With the aim…