Anti-suit injunction, Arbitration Agreements, Commercial Arbitration, Enforcement of an arbitration clause, Jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal, Parallel Proceedings, Set aside an arbitral award, Switzerland, Uncategorized

(Editor in Chief, ASA Bulletin; LALIVE)/ /1 Comment

Arbitration proceedings sometimes spawn a host of parallel court proceedings.  It is not unheard for parties to seek to instrumentalise courts, sometimes with the complicity of the courts themselves, to escape the jurisdiction of an arbitral tribunal.  Such conduct may, however, expose parties to liability for breach of the arbitration agreement, as was confirmed by…

International arbitration

(Director Content and Market Development, Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory, International Group)/ /Leave a comment

As announced in my earlier post we will interview Gary Born at the occasion of his new edition of International Commercial Arbitration. This second edition is an authoritative 4,500 page treatise, in three volumes, providing the most complete and up-to-date available commentary and analysis on all aspects of the international commercial arbitration process. We will…

Arbitration, Best practices, Discovery, Efficiency, Technology

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ArbitralWomen

The views expressed are those of the author alone. Technology in arbitration is of course a vast subject which has been addressed extensively by a number of writers. This article focuses briefly on the issue of reducing paper in arbitrations. It considers: How are practitioners currently dealing with paper reduction at the various stages of…

Arbitration, Arbitration Proceedings, Discovery, Section 1782 Discovery, United States

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

Co-authored by Christopher Smith and James Menz, Schellenberg Wittmer On 10 January 2014, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit issued a highly anticipated decision in Consorcio Ecuatoriano de Telecomunicaciones S.A. v. JAS Forwarding (USA), Inc., 2014 WL 104132 (11th Cir. Jan. 10, 2014) (hereinafter Consorcio II). The holding vacated the same panel’s…

ICSID Convention, Investment Arbitration, Investment protection, Jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal, UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules

(Hogan Lovells)/ /Leave a comment
Hogan Lovells

By Carmen Núñez-Lagos and Javier García Olmedo In an award rendered on 31 January 2014, an arbitral tribunal constituted under the UNCITRAL Rules declined jurisdiction over the claims brought by one of two claimants against the Plurinational State of Bolivia on the basis of the application of a denial of benefits clause in the US-Bolivia…

Advocacy, Arbitration, ICJ, Moot Courts, Willem C. Vis Moot

(International Moot Court Competition Association (IMCCA))/ /Leave a comment

and Oleg Temnikov “Put forth your best” by Bill Clennan The contest lasts for moments Though the training’d taken years. It wasn’t winning alone that was worth the work and tears. The applause will be forgotten The prize will be misplaced. But the long hard hours of practice will never be a waste. For in…

BIT, ICSID Convention, Investment protection, Trans-Pacific Partnership

(Clyde & Co. LLP)/ /2 Comments
Clyde & Co.

By Beth Cubitt and Tom French The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) – a multi-lateral agreement proposed between a number of countries, currently including Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, the United States and Vietnam (although it is hoped to be an open platform welcoming other countries to participate) – is currently the subject of…

Arbitrability, Arbitral Tribunal, Arbitration Agreements, Enforcement of an arbitration clause, Fraud, India

(ICC International Court of Arbitration)/ /1 Comment

and Niyati Gandhi, National Law School of India University in Bangalore The issues arising out of allegations of fraud in international commercial arbitration can be listed by way of two closely connected questions: 1) Do arbitral tribunals have the substantive jurisdiction to make determinations upon allegations of fraud? 2) If the contract containing an arbitration…

Legal Practice, UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts

(WAGEMANN Arbitration)/ /Leave a comment
Institute for Transnational Arbitration (ITA)

A uniform regulation of substantive, procedural or ethical aspects of international commercial disputes through intergovernmental cooperation has proven to be an unachievable goal or hardly a goal at all. Nonetheless, while national laws are widely used as framework for international arbitration, a number of initiatives have emerged aiming at creating intrinsically international rules (soft law…

Burden of proof, Corruption, ICSID Convention, Investment, Investment agreements, Investment Arbitration, Investment protection, Investor

(Colibra Insurance)/ /Leave a comment

Factual background On 4 October 2013 the Tribunal constituted under Metal-Tech Ltd.’s claim against Republic of Uzbekistan (G. Kauffman-Kohler, C. von Wobeser, J. Townsend) issued the award on jurisdiction in the ICSID case ARB/10/03. The peculiar factual background of the case has been previously discussed here. The approach taken by the Tribunal in this case…

Arbitration, Asia-Pacific, China, CIETAC, Hong Kong

(Herbert Smith Freehills)/ /Leave a comment
Herbert Smith Freehills

By Justin D’Agostino and Sean Izor In the past, arbitration laws and arbitral institutions in Asia have often been seen as less well developed when compared to their Western counterparts. However, just as Asia’s economies have grown at a rapid pace, catching up to (or surpassing) those of Europe and the United States, so has…

Energy, ICSID Convention, Investment, Latin America

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The numbers of energy and mining related disputes in Latin America constitute 67 out of 162 or 41% of the total ICSID cases within the region. In most of these disputes the respondents are Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador or Venezuela, which represent 52 out of 67 or 78% of the total energy and mining ICSID cases…

BIT, Book Review, NAFTA

(Pepperdine University School of Law)/ /1 Comment
Institute for Transnational Arbitration (ITA)

In recent years, Oxford University Press has devoted considerable effort to enhancing its transnational law list. In doing so, it has added several titles addressing international arbitration and investor-State topics. Among its more recent offerings is Commentaries on Selected Model Investment Treaties (hereinafter “Commentaries”) edited by Dr. Chester Brown. Commentaries is substantial. It comprises 895…

Arbitral seat, Arbitration, Domestic Courts, Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), National Arbitration Laws, United States

(DLA Piper)/ /1 Comment
YIAG

As leading jurisdictions around the world continue to establish national courts dedicated to the oversight of international arbitration issues, one wonders whether this is an idea whose time has come. This issue was previously discussed on this blog in September 2010. Much progress has been made in the intervening years. The most recent jurisdiction to…

Argentina, Domestic Courts, ICSID Convention, Investment, Investment Arbitration, United States, vacatur

(Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP)/ /Leave a comment
YSIAC

and Luis Miguel Velarde Saffer Last December, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument on BG Group v Argentina – an appeal from a controversial and much-criticized decision of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. The case arose out of emergency actions taken by the Republic of Argentina in late 2001 in the wake of…

Arbitration Act, Brazil

(Linklaters)/ /Leave a comment

By Manuel Castelo Branco and Raquel Galvão Silva The proposal prepared by the Committee for the modification of the Brazilian Arbitration Law was finally revealed and approved with some adjustments on 11 December 2013 by the Constitution, Justice and Citizenship Commission of the Federal Senate (the “Proposal”). The Proposal comes 17 years after the publication…

Uncategorized

(MDisputes)/ /5 Comments

This is a response to yesterday’s post by Duarte Gorjão Henriques, “Incorporating IBA Guidelines Into A ‘Code of Ethics’: A Step Too Far?” My unambiguous answer to his title question is “right direction, not far enough!”. My response is from the perspective of an in-house counsel involved in negotiating dispute clauses in cross-border contracts. Henriques,…

Arbitration, Code of Ethics, IBA Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest, Portugal

(BCH Advogados)/ /1 Comment

The Board of Directors of the “ACL Arbitration Centre” (the Arbitration Centre of the “Portuguese Chamber of Commerce and Industry – Lisbon Commercial Association”) recently approved a new set of rules for arbitration proceedings administrated under its auspices. Along with the new rules, the Board also approved an “Arbitrator’s Code of Ethics”. Divided into 9…

Arbitral Tribunal, Jurisdiction, Set aside an arbitral award

(Linklaters)/ /Leave a comment
Linklaters

By Roland Ziadé and Claudia Cavicchioli, Linklaters LLP On 17 December 2013, the Paris Court of Appeal added a new chapter to the Jnah vs. Marriott saga, when it ruled on an action to set aside an arbitral award issued on 3 February 2012 by which an arbitral tribunal denied jurisdiction over claims brought on…

Applicable Law, Arbitration Agreements

(Herbert Smith Freehills LLP)/ /1 Comment
Herbert Smith Freehills

The December 2013 decision of the English Commercial Court (the Court) in Habas Sinai Ve Tibbi Gazlar Istihsal Andustrisi AS and VSC Steel Company Ltd [2013] EWHC 4071 (Comm) (Habas) summarised the guidance provided in Sulamérica Cia Nacional De Seguros S.A. and others v Enesa Engenharia S.A [2012] EWCA Civ 638 (Sulamérica) and Arsanovia Ltd…

New York Convention, Qatar, Set aside an international arbitral award

(Qatar International Center for Conciliation and Arbitration)/ /Leave a comment

In an earlier post, it was reported that several domestic arbitral awards rendered in Qatar have been set aside by the national judges based on the necessity to be rendered in the name of His Highness The Emir of Qatar, otherwise these awards were considered in violation of public policy. Few weeks ago, a new…

Uncategorized

(City University of Hong Kong, School of Law)/ /Leave a comment

On 23 January 2014, the Centre for Judicial Education and Research (CJER) at the City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) hosted a lecture delivered by Ms. Olga Boltenko, Arbitral Clerk to Neil Kaplan CBE QC SBS. In addition to discussing the advantages and disadvantages of both ad hoc and institutional arbitration, the lecture covered various…

Arbitrability, Enforcement, English Law, Fraud, International arbitration, Procedure

(Herbert Smith Freehills LLP)/ /Leave a comment
Herbert Smith Freehills

Allegations of fraud and corruption are increasingly encountered in international arbitrations but there is at times a perception that international arbitration, which is by nature a private and consensual dispute resolution mechanism, is ill-equipped to handle the challenges thrown up by such allegations. This is particularly so when looking at arbitral procedure. Is this perception…

Arbitration, Customary international law, India, International Law, Pakistan, Permanent Court of Arbitration, Res Judicata

(University of Alberta Faculty of Law)/ /Leave a comment

On 20 December 2013, the final phase in the Indus Waters Kishenganga Arbitration was completed with the rendering of a Final Award by the seven-member Court of Arbitration (“Court”) tasked with resolving the latest water dispute between Pakistan and India. The Court was constituted in 2010 following a Request for Arbitration submitted by Pakistan under…