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…
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…
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,…
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…
(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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington has enforced a settlement between a Jones Act seaman and his employer for maintenance and cure payments, pursuant to the 1958 United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (the “New York Convention”). Castro v. Tri Marine Fish Co., LLC, 2017…
The law of privilege as relating to in-house counsel (especially in civil law jurisdictions) is indeed a controversial and much debated issue. Well-spoken advocates from the “internal” as well as “external” bar have written and spoken on this this issue forcefully. In reading DLA Piper’s Legal Professional Privilege Global Guide (2017), it is absolutely mind…
As a result of a reform of Mexico’s Constitution, on 25 February 2017 a Presidential Decree was enacted, whereby the Congress received the mandate to pass a new law on Alternative Dispute Resolution mechanisms (“ADR Law”) in August 2017.[1] For the first time, the right to “access to ADR mechanisms” was recognised at constitutional level,…
It has been ten years since Bolivia denounced the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes Convention (“ICSID Convention”), becoming the first country to withdraw from the ICSID Convention in history. True, several countries have never even signed the ICSID Convention in the first place (including large economies such as Brazil and India), but until…
According to a recent announcement, the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) International Court of Arbitration is set to open a representative office in the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), a free zone founded by the Ruler of Abu Dhabi on Al Maryah Island, a man-made island on the shores of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi….
On 1 March 2017 the Austrian Supreme Court (Oberster Gerichtshof) ruled on whether potential claims under the Austrian Commercial Agents Act (Handelsvertretergesetz) can be brought before an Austrian court even if the underlying agency agreement contains an arbitration clause and is governed by the laws of New York (OGH 1.3.2017, 5 Ob 72/16y). The judgment…
As arbitration gains prominence, legislative regimes governing domestic arbitration are fast liberalizing globally, and in some instances, like in South Korea, liberalizing faster than the regime governing international arbitration. The question we consider in this post is whether Contracting Parties to the New York Convention on the Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (“New York Convention”)…
After a few declarations of intention to terminate BITs (see my previous post), Poland put words into actions. On 18 July 2017, the Polish Government submitted to the Sejm (the lower house of Polish Parliament) a draft law (“Draft Law”, available in Polish here) which empowers the Polish President to unilaterally terminate the Agreement on…
