Arbitration service providers often seem to handle parties, especially in-house counsel, with gentle kid gloves. A good example is any “roundtable of in-house counsel”, which is now as common at arbitration conferences as children’s tables are at weddings. Just like at weddings, the adults occasionally wander over to check on things and ask, “did you…
In his President’s Message (ASA Bulletin, Vol. 32, no. 2, 2014), Elliott Geisinger proposes a real challenge to the arbitration community. In a simple but rather persuasive rhetorical style, Geisinger places in confrontation Me. Paul Philibert Confus, Avocat à la Cour and Sir Reginald Muddle, QC, giving life to a debate that seems to be…
Investment arbitration is a crucial and sensitive dispute-resolution method, notably because the treatment given to foreign investment matters may materially affect the economic and social realities of a country or region, particularly those in development. In the last decade, however, as already reported and addressed in this blog by, among many others, Vanessa Giraud and…
By Henri Alvarez and Alexandra Mitretodis, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP In Sociedade-de-fomento Industrial Private Limited v. Pakistan Steel Mills Corporation, decided on June 2, 2014, the Court of Appeal of British Columbia set the test in international arbitration for enforcing foreign arbitral awards by freezing assets. The decision confirms that a party with limited association…
The worldwide launch of the Guide for In-House Counsel and Other Party Representatives on Effective Management of Arbitration Guide took place on 6 June 2014 in Paris. The Guide provides a checklist for the procedural decisions that need to be made at each principal phase of an arbitration. Useful in both large and small cases,…
The potential intervention of Indian courts over foreign seated arbitrations is a hot topic in international arbitration. On 28 May 2014, the Supreme Court of India (“SCI”) heated up the debate by handing down a judgment in Reliance Industries Limited & Anr v Union of India. The SCI found that Indian courts had no jurisdiction…
In a recent, worldwide yet unprecedented move, the DIFC Courts have circulated for public consultation a draft Practice Direction (see Practice Direction No. X of 2014 amending Practice Direction No. 2 of 2012 DIFC Courts’ Jurisdiction, electronically accessible on the official website of the DIFC Courts at www.difccourts.ae), which essentially aims to provide for the…
In a case my business had a few years ago, the parties’ contract specified expedited procedures under the AAA’s Commercial Arbitration Rules. Immediately after the request for arbitration had been filed, the case manager of the ICDR, the AAA’s international branch, sent the parties a letter to warn us about this.(1) She pointed out that…
and Li Meng, AnJie Law Firm Whether foreign arbitration institutions could conduct arbitration in the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”) is a question that many industry insiders are curious about. Back in 2006, when the Wuxi Intermediate People’s Court (“Wuxi Court”) refused to recognize and enforce an arbitral award issued by the ICC Court of…
The Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (the “New York Convention”) is given effect in England and Wales through sections 100 to 103 of the Arbitration Act 1996 (the “1996 Act”). As is well known, the beneficiary of an award promulgated by an arbitral tribunal in a state-party to the New…
Thank you to everyone who has participated in our Survey on the Enforcement of International Arbitration Awards in China. We have been gratified at the strong number of responses. We wanted to remind anyone who has not yet had a chance to fill out the survey that we will be closing the survey to new…
By Carlos González–Bueno and Laura Lozano, González-Bueno & Asociados, Madrid. It is commonly understood that Latin American countries have played an important dominant role as respondents in ICSID cases. This has led to the withdrawal from the ICSID Convention by several Latin American countries. Interestingly, however, according to recent ICSID statistics, cases filed against Latin…
UNCITRAL’s Working Group II (Arbitration and Conciliation) will begin its 47th session today, July 7 , in New York. Among the items to be discussed is a proposal for a multilateral convention on the enforceability of international commercial settlement agreements reached through mediation. (See also this link.) The proposal, which has been put forth by…
The ICSID Convention threshold for arbitrators’ challenges, upholding challenges only if arbitrators exhibit a manifest lack of the qualities required to sit as arbitrators (Art. 57 ICSID Convention), has in the past been criticized as being too strict. Recently, however, few decisions, discussed in this post, seem to show that the ICSID “manifest” threshold is…
By Jelita Pandjaitan and Justin Tang The China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone (the “FTZ”) was launched in September 2013 with promises of relaxed controls in key areas such as foreign exchange and foreign investment. In the subsequent nine months, a raft of initiatives have included the liberalisation of offshore RMB financing and other cross-border…
for Young Arbitrators Forum (YAP) In 2000, only five Latin American countries had enacted the Model Law, and perhaps even worse, roughly a fifth of Latin American countries had still not acceded to the New York Convention. Today, the Model Law is in force in roughly half of all Latin American countries1)The 1985 Model Law…
and Sapna Jhangiani, Clyde & Co. and Joseph P. Matthews J.D., University of Miami School of Law for Young Arbitration Practitioners It has been some time since the White Industries Australia Limited v Republic of India judgment was rendered against India in 2011. However, there remain several interesting aspects of the case still not widely…
Armada (Singapore) Pte Ltd (Under Judicial Management) v Gujarat NRE Coke Limited [2014] FCA 636 Justice Foster of the Federal Court of Australia handed down judgment on 17 June 2014 in an application for the enforcement of three foreign arbitral awards. The key issue for determination before the court was whether the applicant, Armada (Singapore)…
and Oleg Temnikov Foreword The recent decision on preliminary objections, dated 17 January 2014, against the application for annulment in Elsamex S.A. v. Honduras (ARB/09/4) brought renewed interest in the procedure for summary dismissal of unmeritorious claims under Rule 41(5) of the ICSID Arbitration Rules. The present post examines shortly this procedure as well as…
Dr. Ileana M. Smeureanu 1)Ileana Smeureanu is an associate attorney with Jones Day (Paris). This article is based on a speech that the author gave at the ICC YAF/YAPP 6TH Joint Annual Colloquium “Young Approaches to Arbitration”, Vienna (Austria), 12 April 2014. The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and…
In two recent decisions, Banyan Tree v. Meydan Group LLC (Case No. ARB 003-2013) and X1 and X2 v. Y1 and Y2 (Case No. ARB 002-2013), the DIFC Court of First Instance (H.E. Justice Omar Al Muhairi and Sir John Chadwick respectively) confirmed its jurisdiction to recognise and enforce within the DIFC arbitral awards rendered…
The Institute for Transnational Arbitration (ITA) held its 26th Annual ITA Workshop in Dallas, Texas on June 18-20, 2014. This year’s ITA Workshop, titled “Modern Enforcement of Arbitral Awards: ‘Show Me the Money,’” covered a range of recent developments and strategic considerations relating to the enforcement of arbitral awards. To kick-off this Workshop, the ITA…
One of the defining and distinguishing features of arbitration is the privacy that it affords parties. However, as all practitioners recognize, arbitration is rarely conducted in full secrecy and applications to vacate or confirm an award can bring the existence, subject matter, and outcome of an arbitration to the forefront of public discourse. Often times,…
The keynote speaker at this year’s ITA Annual Workshop was the Honorable Bernardo Sepúlveda-Amor. Judge Sepúlveda-Amor is Vice President of the International Court of Justice and a professor of international law at El Colegio de México. He has previously served on the United Nations International Law Commission, as Mexico’s Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and as…
