Amicus Curiae, Arbitration, Energy Charter Treaty, European Commission, European Law, European Union, Intra-EU BITs

(Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP) and (Seven Summits Arbitration)/ /Leave a comment
Young ICCA

Reliance on the investor-state dispute resolution (ISDS) mechanism of the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) is booming, with at least ten new cases registered in the past year alone. Notably, nine of these ten cases – and almost 60% of all publicly reported cases initiated to date – have been brought by an investor from a…

Arbitrability, Fraud, India, kompetenz-kompetenz

(West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences)/ /Leave a comment

The decision of the Indian Supreme Court in A. Ayyasamy v. A. Paramasivam (‘Ayyasamy’) [(2016) 10 SCC 386] has been previously discussed on this blog here, and here. This post seeks to analyse the distinction between arbitrability of fraud concerning India-seated arbitrations and foreign-seated arbitrations created as a result of this judgment. The court in World…

Arbitration, Expropriation, Jurisdiction, Sovereign Immunities, United States

(King & Spalding)/ /Leave a comment
Young ICCA

Overview On May 1, 2017, the United States Supreme Court issued its unanimous decision in Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela v. Helmerich & Payne Int’l Drilling Co. (137 S.Ct. 1312). In its ruling, the Court addressed the expropriation exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (the “FSIA”). The expropriation exception permits plaintiffs to bring claims in…

Arbitration, Dispute Resolution, ICC, Online Dispute Resolution

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ArbitralWomen

As mentioned in Part I, a two-day conference on “Equal Access to Information & Justice, Online Dispute Resolution”, organised by the ICC took place in Paris on 12-13 June. Over 160 lawyers, magistrates, academics, researchers, dispute resolution organisations and online dispute resolution providers, from over 30 countries and representing each continent attended. The first panel…

Arbitration, Dispute Resolution, ICC, Online Dispute Resolution

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ArbitralWomen

A two-day conference on “Equal Access to Information & Justice, Online Dispute Resolution”, organised by the ICC took place in Paris on 12-13 June. Over 160 lawyers, magistrates, academics, researchers, dispute resolution organisations and online dispute resolution providers, from over 30 countries and representing each continent attended. The conference was jointly chaired by Ethan Katsh…

Arbitration, Kluwer Arbitration Blog

(Stockholm University)/ /Leave a comment

Professor Roger Alford, the Editor of Kluwer Arbitration Blog, was appointed to leadership role at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he will promote the enforcement of antitrust laws around the world. Professor Alford will be the deputy assistant attorney general for international affairs in the DOJ’s Antitrust Division, in which capacity he will manage…

Advocacy, Arbitration, Book Review, Written Submissions

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Since 30 years, international arbitration of business disputes continues to increase. It has become the primary form, some say “the natural way”, of settling commercial disputes between companies or individuals from different countries. As international arbitration becomes more popular and wide-spread it has also become more sophisticated, developing its own procedures and documents. The steady…

Arbitration, Emergency Arbitrator, ICC, SCC, SCC Rules

(Bae, Kim & Lee LLC)/ /Leave a comment

Introduction It has been almost seven years since the introduction of the concept of emergency arbitrator procedure by major arbitral institutions, and the procedure has become an invaluable option for arbitration users who seek protection and preservation of their rights before the constitution of a full tribunal. However, most arbitral institution rules that include rules…

Dubai, Enforcement, English Arbitration Act, State Immunity

(Blanke Arbitration LLC)/ /1 Comment

A recent ruling of the DIFC Court of First Instance (see Claim No. ARB 003/2017 – Pearl Petroleum Company Limited & Others v. The Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq [2017] DIFC ARB 003) deals with the question as to whether a State immunity defence may be available to a State entity or a governmental defendant…

Kluwer Mediation Blog

(Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary University of London)/ /Leave a comment

August offered an eclectic mix of posts ranging from recent developments regarding mediation in investor-state disputes, the potential offered by mediation in environmental disputes in India, and the meaning of true voluntariness in mediation. Below is a brief summary of each of the posts published on the Kluwer Mediation Blog last month. In Where Might…

Appointment of arbitrators, Courts, India, Uncategorized

(West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences)/ /3 Comments

As on May 1, 2017, 60751 cases were pending in the Indian Supreme Court. Likewise, as per the data available, a total of 41,53,957 cases are pending in the twenty-four High Courts in India. The rate at which these cases are disposed, for various reasons like the vacancies for the position of judges, inefficient procedures,…

Arbitration, ICCA, Third party funding

(Boston University), (General Editor International Journal of Arbitration, Mediation and Dispute Management; Queen Mary University of London), and (Bocconi University)/ /Leave a comment

As the Co-Chairs of the ICCA-Queen Mary Task Force on Third-Party Funding in International Arbitration (Task Force), we are pleased to announce that the draft report of the ICCA-Queen Mary Task Force on Third-Party Funding in International Arbitration is now available for public comment until 31 October 2017. The draft report is available here. Overview…

Arbitral Tribunal, Arbitration, Arbitrator's mandate, Arbitrators

(Clyde & Co. LLP)/ /1 Comment
YIAG

(a.k.a why is it always Bill?) To those unfamiliar with this popular Hasbro™ family game, each team has a board with 24 faces on it – the faces vary in colour, shape, gender, facial hair and attire. In the conventional game each side ‘picks their person’ and the other player has to whittle down the…

Arbitration, Costs, Costs in arbitral proceedings, Legal costs, Third party funding

(Luther Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft)/ /2 Comments

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent those of Luther Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft. Third-Party Funding (TPF) has certainly captured the attention of the arbitration community in the last few years. This has led to an interesting debate on its implications and potential need for regulation that has, however, failed…

Arbitration, Arbitration Agreement, India, one-way arbitration clauses

(National Law School of India University)/ /1 Comment

The primary purpose of an arbitration clause is to represent the parties’ common agreement to resolve disputes arising out of their contractual relationship by arbitration. One-way arbitration clauses, however, serve this primary purpose while giving only one party the right to commence arbitration proceedings. Consequently, the other party only has the option of approaching a…

BIT, Fair and Equitable Treatment, India

(VVGB Advocaten and European Federation for Investment Law and Arbitration (EFILA))/ /Leave a comment

These two-parts blog posts look into the ways that states can control the exercise of tribunals’ discretion and their implications. Of course, states can prevent unintended results from happening by simply adding more specific language to their new BITs. But what can they do with the existing treaties? Due process concerns Joint interpretative statements, as…

Fair and Equitable Treatment, India

(VVGB Advocaten and European Federation for Investment Law and Arbitration (EFILA))/ /1 Comment

There are around 3,000 bilateral investment treaties (BIT) in force worldwide. Most of them are concise with broadly formulated investor rights and host state obligations. In practice, it is up to arbitral tribunals to give them the actual meaning. Many of those BITs are now being revisited. This recast movement comes from the policy concern…

Announcement, Arbitration, ITA

(Vinson & Elkins LLP)/ /Leave a comment
Young ITA

As announced at its Annual Meeting and 29th Workshop in Dallas, the Institute of Transnational Arbitration (ITA) is relaunching our young (under 40) practitioners’ group, now called Young ITA. This new initiative will focus on expanding the global footprint and profile of the group and ITA, and on creating new leadership opportunities for young arbitration…

Arbitration, Investment Arbitration, Myanmar

(New York Bar Attorney )/ /Leave a comment

According to the Doing Business Reports, from 2014 and 2016 Myanmar ameliorated the possibility to enter into business in the country by increasing its rank from 177 to 171. However, this evolution seems to be frozen as shown by the 2017 Report in terms of amelioration. Nonetheless, Myanmar’s government is ready to take a next…

Arbitration, Arbitration Awards, Enforcement, Enforcement of an award that was set aside, UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules, United States

(Albright StoneBridge Group)/ /2 Comments

The US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit’s Thai-Lao Lignite (Thailand) v. Government of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic The friction between a seat and an enforcement forum, i.e. between annulment and enforcement continues. An arbitral award in the Thai-Lao Lignite (Thailand) v. Government of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic case (“Thai Lao Lignite…

Anti-ISDS Propaganda, India, International arbitration

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On 29th December 2016, the Government of India constituted a High-Level Committee under the Chairmanship of Mr. Justice B N Srikrishna, Retired Judge, Supreme Court of India. The Committee was constituted pursuant to the Government’s commitment to speedy resolution of commercial disputes and to make India an international hub of arbitration. The terms of reference…

Arbitration, Counterclaims, Environment, Investment agreements, Investment Arbitration, Investor-State arbitration

(Twenty Essex) and (King's College London)/ /Leave a comment

The potential clash between protection of investors under investment treaties and protection of the environment has emerged in a number of recent arbitrations. More than 60 investment disputes filed since 2012 have had some environmental component. Amongst them, there have been several cases in which States have sought to enforce environmental law against investors in…

Arbitration, Energy, Energy Charter Treaty, European Commission, Fair and Equitable Treatment, Investment Arbitration, Italy, Legitimate Expectations

(Omnia Strategy LLP)/ /Leave a comment

Introduction The investment solar energy saga triggered by the regulatory reforms in the renewable energy undertaken by Spain and Italy is likely to be the new Black Swan in the investment arbitration world, reaching the importance and controversy of the Argentinian crisis of 2001. In addition, the question whether the ISDS system has learnt the…

Journal of International Arbitration

(ArbBoutique & Queen Mary University of London)/ /Leave a comment

ARTICLES SECTION Christopher R. Seppälä, Why Finland should adopt the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration Abstract: This article describes why a small country like Finland, which has excellent natural attributes as a place for arbitration (political neutrality and stability, respect for the rule of law, freedom from corruption and a central location between…