Arbitration clause, Enforcement, Public Policy, Russia

(Taylor Wessing)/ /5 Comments
YIAG

Paul Hobeck and Christian Stubbe explained that internationally operating companies fear a “surprising interpretation of the term public policy” 1)“eine überraschende(…) Auslegung des Begriffs Ordre Public“, Hobeck / Stubbe, Genese einer Schiedsklausel (The Genesis of an Arbitration Clause), German Arbitration Journal (SchiedsVZ) 2003, p. 15, 19. when it comes to the recognition and enforcement of…

Arbitration Proceedings, Damages experts, Third party funding

(FTI Forensic and Litigation Consulting)/ /Leave a comment

The controversial topic of third-party funding in international arbitration continues to generate much debate across the conference circuit and in the legal press. On the one hand, supporters claim that such third-party funding arrangements improve access to justice since they allow otherwise cash-poor claimants to pursue meritorious claims; on the other, detractors believe that third-party…

Surveys

(School of International Arbitration, Queen Mary University of London (QMUL))/ /Leave a comment
Institute for Transnational Arbitration (ITA)

Numbers often speak better than words: international arbitration is nowadays a well-established mechanism for the settlement of commercial disputes; according to published institutional statistics the number of cases in 2009 is three times the number of cases in 1992. According to the 2010 Survey (www.arbitrationonline.org) of the School of International Arbitration sponsored by White and…

Arbitrators, Costs in arbitral proceedings, Expert evidence

(Konrad & Justich)/ /Leave a comment

Everybody who has visited a certain number of arbitration conferences over the last few years has probably heard at least an equal number of contributions relating to costs in arbitration. Similarly, the number of written articles on the topic in legal literature is enormous and entire books are based on the subject. Considering that cost…

Arbitration, South America

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Here in the southern hemisphere, more precisely at Buenos Aires, Argentina, the 5th Annual Congress on Arbitration took place on the afternoon of Tuesday 12 and morning of Wednesday 13, October, co-organized by two institutions: CARAT and the Arbitral Tribunal of the Stock Market of Buenos Aires. Present at the event were a number of…

Eastern Europe, Europe, Investment agreements, Investment protection

(Konrad & Justich)/ /5 Comments

Within the last two decades, over 30 new states emerged within the international community. From a political, economic, as well as a legal point of view, the formation of a state is always an expedition into unchartered waters. On a domestic level, the establishment of a sound legal system is the prerequisite for a stable…

arbitrators’ conduct

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

The subject of codes of conduct for international arbitration practitioners has received considerable attention of late. On one side of the debate, several proposals for such a code of conduct have been circulated recently – one at the ICCA Congress in Rio de Janeiro, another by the International Law Association (“ILA”) Study Group on the…

Asia-Pacific, BIT, European Law, Investment Arbitration

(Notre Dame Law School)/ /Leave a comment

In the past twenty years the world of investment arbitration has taken the commercial world by storm. There are over 2,750 bilateral investment treaties and almost every one of them has an arbitration provision. Investment arbitration is now a prominent feature of the arbitration landscape. Just as BITs have proliferated in recent years, so too…

Appointment of arbitrators, Arbitration Agreements, Arbitration Awards, Arbitration Institutions and Rules, Arbitration Proceedings, Arbitrators, Commercial Arbitration, Domestic Courts, ICC Arbitration, National Arbitration Laws, Partial award, Set aside an international arbitral award

(Castaldi Mourre & Partners)/ /2 Comments

Amongst the many issues raised by the now famous Tecnimont case, which we analyzed in our 19 May 2009 blog , was the relevance in setting aside proceedings of institutional rules relating to challenges. The ICC partial award had been quashed by a 12 February 2009 judgment of the Court of Appeal of Paris, because…

Enforcement, ICC Arbitration, Supreme Court, UK

(Investment Arbitration Reporter)/ /Leave a comment

The UK Supreme Court released its judgment today in a much-written about dispute pitting a Saudi company against the Government of Pakistan. In the judgment, the Court declined to enforce a 2006 ICC arbitral award in favour of Dallah Real Estate and Tourism Holding Company. A central issue in the case was whether the Government…

Arbitration Awards, International Law

(Notre Dame Law School)/ /1 Comment

Yesterday voters in Oklahoma voted overwhelmingly (70% in favor to 30% against) to ban the use of international law and Sharia law in state courts. It appears that the referendum will be headed to the courts for review, for as my colleague Michael Helfand has noted, the ban on Sharia law may well be unconstitutional…

Arbitration Awards, Enforcement, Europe, European Convention on International Commercial Arbitration 1961 (ECICA)

(Konrad & Justich)/ /Leave a comment

The European Convention on International Commercial Arbitration 1961 (ECICA) is a multilateral treaty regulating certain aspects of international arbitral proceedings. Some of its provisions cover issues also governed by the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards 1958, also known as the New York Convention (NYC), which was concluded three years earlier…

Anti-arbitration, ICDR protocol, Manufacturer/Supplier Disputes, On-line settlements

(MDisputes)/ /2 Comments

British legal thinker Richard Susskind famously hypothesized in his book, End of Lawyers?,that the practice of lawyering will not actually end so much as gravitate towards extremes of “commoditized” legal work at one end and “bespoke” work on the other. The commoditization of some dispute resolution work has already begun to occur via the process…

BIT, Investment protection

(Notre Dame Law School)/ /1 Comment

Last week I had the privilege to attend an investment arbitration conference and FDI moot court competition at Pepperdine. Kudos to Murdoch University of Australia for winning the competition and my alma mater NYU for winning the highest overall ranking. There was much to ponder in the conference from the likes of Andrea Bjorkland, Todd…

Arbitration clause, Europe, ICC Arbitration

(Drakopoulos Law Firm)/ /Leave a comment

The Supreme Court of Greece, further to its recent ruling in favor of enforcing international arbitral awards in Greece, issued a second ruling in favor of international ADR. In a recent decision, the Supreme Court found that a major dispute deriving from a contract which contained an arbitration clause with a clear reference to ICC…

Brazil, Partial award, Public contract disputes, Public Entities

(Tribe Arbitration and St Mary's University)/ /3 Comments

A judge of the public law courts of the State of São Paulo concluded that a dispute arising out of a turn-key agreement entered into by a State-owned company and several construction companies for the construction of a new underground line in the city of São Paulo should not have been referred to arbitration. The…

Arbitrators, Commercial Arbitration, Confidentiality, Other Issues

(White & Case LLP)/ /Leave a comment
White & Case

A major new survey on international arbitration conducted by Queen Mary University London and sponsored by White & Case revealed several interesting findings on corporate choices concerning international arbitration.* As already reported by Global Arbitration Review, the survey shows “the extent to which the governing law is a driver of choice among those framing arbitration…

Arbitration Proceedings, Costs in arbitral proceedings

(Hanotiau & van den Berg)/ /1 Comment
YIAG

The “Instant Cost Order” is the practical implementation of a means to address the much discussed issue of (the lack of) cost efficiency in international arbitration. It also tackles the question of how pro-active tribunals should be in order to control party-driven arbitral proceedings. The majority of the costs incurred in an arbitral proceeding does…

Arbitration Institutions and Rules, Arbitrators, Suggestions to improve transparency and access to usable data

(MDisputes)/ /2 Comments

A recent discussion on the OGEMID list about “elite arbitrators” prompted one participant to humorously compare the discussion to the frequent flier programs of airlines. This led to some fanciful speculation by in-house counsel of arbitration institutions offering their own loyalty programs, awarding us with “Frequent Arbitrating” points. For example, would there be free “upgrades”…

Appointment of arbitrators, Arbitrators, Europe

(Dr Stefan Kröll, LL.M., Rechtsanwalt)/ /3 Comments
Institute for Transnational Arbitration (ITA)

In a recent contribution to this list serve Alexis Mourre vigorously defended the parties’ right to appoint their own arbitrator. The appointment of an arbitrator is probably one of the single most important decisions during an arbitration. In so far it is not surprising that the right to appoint ones own arbitrator is regularly mentioned…

Investment Arbitration

(Investment Arbitration Reporter)/ /Leave a comment

Several months ago, I drew attention on this blog to Uruguayan press reports which hinted that Uruguay might be prepared to compromise in the face of an arbitral claim filed by Phillip Morris International. (For background on the claim, see this Investment Arbitration Reporter account.) Following the flurry of Uruguayan press coverage, I spent a…

Anti-arbitration

(MDisputes)/ /2 Comments

In last week’s post, I mentioned how some outspoken in-house counsel have undeservedly acquired a reputation for being anti-arbitration for having advocated improvements. I tried to explain how most in-house lawyers will want to be perceived as “dispute resolution neutral,” i.e., open to whatever type of procedure may best achieve the party’s goals. So what…