The year 2022 was a busy one at the intersection of technology and international arbitration, both for the arbitration community and for the Kluwer Arbitration Blog. Virtual hearings further cemented their status as a mainstay of arbitral practice; we saw a burst of guidance, soft law instruments and rule-setting activity; and our Arbitration Tech Toolbox…

The Permanent Arbitration Court attached to the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (The Hungarian Commercial Arbitration Court or ‘HCAC’) has recently adopted its revised rules of proceedings that went into effect on 31 December 2022. This development is particularly significant for the Hungarian arbitration landscape given that HCAC has exclusive competence over commercial, financial…

East and Central Asia made further strides to promote arbitration, including through legislative reforms and enhancement of judicial assistance, as well as the accession, ratification, and creation of treaties.  Some domestic courts clarified views on fundamental issues in arbitration.  On the user side, East and Central Asian parties continued to be active as both claimants…

Investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) has been widely criticized for being a tool in the hands of multinational companies, used to challenge domestic public policy measures even when legitimately adopted in the public interest. Critiques have been notable concerning the asymmetrical nature of international investment agreements (IIAs). While IIAs were concluded to afford protection to foreign…

The current debate on the future of the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) system seems not to leave anyone indifferent. Two camps can be discerned in the debate; the first comprising those who would argue that ISDS is in need of reform, and the second those who defend the ISDS system as is. The MOL v….

Subscribers to KluwerArbitration enjoy access to the ICCA Yearbook Commercial Arbitration A new upload of materials from the 2022 volume of the Yearbook Commercial Arbitration is now available on the KluwerArbitration database. It consists of 21 decisions and includes, among others, three decisions each from Hungary and Pakistan, and four decisions rendered by the courts…

Review of the Arbitration Act 1996: Responses to the Law Commission Consultation Paper Earlier this year, the Arbitration Act 1996 celebrated twenty-five years from the day it was brought into force. On 22 September 2022, the Law Commission issued its Consultation Paper on the Review of the Arbitration Act 1996. The Law Commission considered the…

On 30th of November 2022, Washington Arbitration Week 2022 continued with several panels held in hybrid format. This post presents some highlights of the panel titled ‘The Influence of Public International Law in Investment Arbitration,’ which featured as moderator Mr. Lee M. Caplan (Arent Fox) and as panelists Prof. Dr. Yannick Radi (UC Louvain), Ms….

This post highlights the Third Edition of the Washington Arbitration Week 2022 panel on “Class or Collective Action in Investment Arbitration,” held at the offices of Crowell & Moring LLP on December 2, 2022. The panel was moderated by WAW Co-Founder Mr. Ian Laird (Crowell & Moring/Georgetown Law). He was joined by Mr. Matthew Drossos…

The third edition of the Washington Arbitration Week (WAW), founded by Ian Laird (Crowell) and Jose Antonio Rivas (Xtrategy), took place in a hybrid format from November 28 to December 2, 2022 and included 15 panels. On December 1, 2022, the conference held a discussion on the topic of international investment protection of space assets….

On October 17, 2022, the Secretary General of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (“PCA”) and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Ecuador (“Ecuador”) signed in Quito a “Host Country Agreement” (the “Agreement”). This news has been well received, both in the Ecuadorian and the international arbitration community. It is also the culmination of…

International arbitration is reputed for its flexibility shaped by the underlying principle of party autonomy. Past years have witnessed the development of various types of funding arrangements for arbitration users, including third-party funding (“TPF”) and, most recently, alternative fee arrangements with counsel (“AFAs”) in Singapore and Hong Kong. While these new initiatives undoubtedly increase flexibility…

At Kluwer Arbitration Blog, December is the month to thank our readers, collaborators and editors for their readership, contributions and support. 2022 was a year of hope, after two long years of Covid-19 restrictions, without having the opportunity to meet in person. But 2022 has been yet another demanding year: We have continued to deal…

The Institute of Transnational Arbitration (ITA), in collaboration with the ITA Board of Reporters, is happy to inform you that the latest ITA Arbitration Report was published: a free email subscription service available at KluwerArbitration.com delivering timely reports on awards, cases, legislation and current developments from over 60 countries and 12 institutions. To get your free subscription to the ITA…

Arbitration’s key strength lies in the near-universal enforcement of its arbitral awards. The 1958 Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (“New York Convention”) offers parties the benefit of going under a uniform enforcement regime in all of its Contracting States. But whilst it is a popular choice, the New York Convention…

The contents of this issue of the journal is now available and includes the following contributions:   Nolan ‘Youngkwang’ Lee, Richard Garnett & Lee Carroll, Enforcement of Arbitral Awards in South Korea Not only is South Korea an economic powerhouse, but it is also a pro-arbitration and pro-enforcement jurisdiction. This article examines the enforcement framework…

A seminar on 10 November 2023 during Australian Arbitration Week discussed “Australia’s engagement in the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) reform process”. My presentation divided successive governments’ approach into three significant eras over the last decade: anti-ISDS (2011-13), case-by-case ISDS (2014-2021), and uncertainty (since 2022). Some uncertainty has dissipated since the seminar. On 14 November 2022,…

According to arbitration historian Derek Roebuck, what practice was widely used during the reign of her majesty Queen Elizabeth I to avoid the involvement of the Crown in disputes?   “Arbitrage”, a practice in many ways similar to modern arbitration, and which had its roots in the Norman conquest. “Dunking”, a means of encouraging litigants…

While the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (“New York Convention”) has been one of the driving factors behind the success of international arbitration, its provisions have not evolved in parity with technological advancements, leading to concerns that the Convention may not survive the test of technology. One cause for concern…

A slate of recent cases reminded us how important are the doctrines of res judicata and/or collateral estoppel. Put simply, res judicata is known as claim preclusion because a judicial judgment or arbitral award deciding a particular “claim” will be binding on the parties who participated in that proceeding, whereas collateral estoppel is known as…

This year, the arbitration team at SOAS consisting of Emilia Onyema, Steven Finizio and Baiju Vasani in cooperation with the African Legal Support Facility of the African Development Bank, organised and delivered four separate “counsel in arbitration skills-based training” workshops in collaboration with four arbitral centres in Africa: in Lagos (LACIAC), Douala (CMAG), Kigali (KIAC)…

As part of the 2022 Istanbul Arbitration Week (ISTAW) organized from 10 to 14 October 2022, the Energy Disputes Arbitration Center (EDAC), which is the only energy sector-based arbitration center with its own rules, hosted several panels in relation to energy arbitration at historical Sait Halim Pasha Mansion by the Bosphorus. This post provides a…

As part of the 2022 Istanbul Arbitration Week (ISTAW) organized from 10 to 14 October 2022, the Energy Disputes Arbitration Center (EDAC) hosted two panels in relation to arbitration developments in Turkey and Istanbul’s place in the world of arbitration, on which this post aims to report (see also our coverage of ISTAW energy-related panels)….

The Commercial Court of Appeals in the City of Buenos Aires recently granted a request for preliminary measures. These measures aimed to obtain the necessary elements to analyze and determine whether the counterparty had breached a stock purchase agreement that included an arbitration clause as the dispute-settlement mechanism. In this post, we discuss whether courts…