Access to Justice, Albania, Arbitral Award, Arbitration, Enforcement, European Court of Human Rights, Foreign arbitral awards, Investment Arbitration, Investment Disputes, Investor-State arbitration, Investor-state tribunals, ISDS, Recognition, Recognition and enforcement of arbitral award

, (Fietta LLP)/ /Leave a comment

On 5 March 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (“ECtHR” or “the Court”) delivered its judgment in Iliria S.R.L. v. Albania (“Iliria”), a case concerning a complaint under Article 6(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR” or “the Convention”) relating to a more than 17-year delay in the conclusion of recognition (exequatur) proceedings…

Competence, Georgia, Independence and Impartiality, Jurisdiction

(Cocaz Legal LLC)/ /Leave a comment

Despite many years of hard and tireless work for the purposes of ADR promotion in Georgia, the recent attitude of the courts towards arbitration causes significant problems at the level of basic concepts and principles. To demonstrate this, it is enough to take a look at two high-profile 2023 decisions of the Tbilisi Court of…

Arbitral Tribunal, Artificial Intelligence, EU Law, European Union

(WilmerHale & Queen Mary University of London)/ /Leave a comment

There has been a lot of talk about artificial intelligence (“AI”) in international arbitration in recent years.  I vividly remember when I gave the keynote speech on “International Arbitration 3.0 – How Artificial Intelligence Will Change Dispute Resolution” at the Vienna Arbitration Days 2018.  At the time, people were quite skeptical about the topic, but…

Achmea, BIT, CJEU, Domestic Courts, ECT Withdrawal, Energy Charter Treaty, Europe, foreign direct investment, Foreign Investment, International arbitration, Intra-EU Investment Arbitration, Investment Arbitration

, (Clifford Chance)/ /Leave a comment

On 25 April 2024, the European Federation for Investment Law and Arbitration (“EFILA”) held its 9th Annual Conference at Clifford Chance in Frankfurt. The conference was opened by the Chair of the Executive Board of EFILA, Mirjam van de Hel (NautaDutilh) who underscored the importance of discussing the impact of geopolitical uncertainties on international arbitration…

empirical data, Empirical Research, Enforcement, International arbitration

(The University of Kansas School of Law), (Pepperdine Caruso School of Law; Three Crowns), (Pepperdine University School of Law), and (Bocconi University)/ /1 Comment

International arbitration specialists frequently estimate that national courts give effect to about 90% of all international arbitral awards. Recently, several scholars have set out to empirically test this estimated 90% enforcement rate (see here, here, here, and here). When they ran their numbers regarding how frequently national courts give effect to awards, however, they found…

Colombia, Environmental protection, Investment protection, Latin America, Minimum Standard of Treatment

, (Baker McKenzie)/ /Leave a comment

On February 28, 2024, the arbitral tribunal in the arbitration between Red Eagle Exploration Limited (“Red Eagle”) and Colombia (ICSID Case No. ARB/18/13) issued an award under the Canada-Colombia FTA (2008)) (“FTA”). In this post, we discuss the background to this decision as well as the tribunal’s ruling regarding the merits (minimum standard of treatment…

Climate change, Environment, ESG, Investment Disputes, Investment protection, Investor-State arbitration, Investor-state tribunals, Sustainability, Sustainable economy

, , (King & Wood Mallesons)/ /Leave a comment

Following our previous post on dispute resolution in carbon markets, the ICSID Tribunal in Koch Industries, Inc. and Koch Supply & Trading, LP v. Canada, ICSID Case No. ARB/20/52 (“Koch v. Canada”) recently dismissed the Claimants’ USD 31.3 million claims arising out of a cap-and-trade emissions programme on jurisdictional grounds. The Tribunal’s key findings included…

CJEU, ECT Withdrawal, Energy Charter Treaty, EU Law, European Court of Justice

(LALIVE)/ /Leave a comment

In a judgment dated 3 April 2024, the Swiss Supreme Court (the “SSC”) rejected Spain’s challenge of an arbitral award rendered in an intra-EU arbitration under the Energy Charter Treaty (the “ECT”). This post addresses the most salient point of this decision, i.e. the SSC’s rejection of the Achmea and Komstroy judgments of the Court…

Jurisdiction, Non-signatory, United States Courts

(UCLA)/ /Leave a comment

On March 11, 2024, in Swinerton Builders, Inc. v. Argonaut Insurance Company, a district court in the Ninth Circuit found a valid arbitration agreement between the contractor, Swinerton Builders, Inc. (“Swinerton”), and the non-signatory insurer, Argonaut Insurance Co. (“Argonaut”), of its subcontractor, Northern Services, Inc. (“Northern”). No. 23-CV-4158 (DMR), 2024 WL 1057473 (N.D. Cal. Mar….

DIAC, Enforceability, Enforcement, Enforcement of arbitration agreement, MENA, New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, United Arab Emirates

(Blanke Arbitration LLC)/ /1 Comment

Two recent judgments, one from the United States (US) District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana (“Louisiana Court”) and another from the Singapore High Court (“Singapore Court”), have highlighted the difficulties that Decree No. 34/2021(Concerning the Dubai International Arbitration Centre) (“Decree No. 34/2021”) may cause to the enforceability of DIFC-LCIA arbitration clauses in arbitrations…

Enforcement, English Law, UK

(A&O Shearman)/ /Leave a comment

On 14 April 2024, the English Commercial Court granted Crescent Gas Corporation Limited (“CGC”) ownership of a London property to assist it (partially) to recover a USD 2.6 billion judgment debt owed by the National Iranian Oil Company (“NIOC”).  This post explores the court’s decision and key takeaways for practitioners particularly regarding enforcement strategies.  …

Advisory Centre, UNCITRAL, UNCITRAL WG III Series, UNCITRAL WG3 Series

(Luxembourg Centre for European Law (LCEL), University of Luxembourg)/ /Leave a comment

UNCITRAL Working Group III (“WGIII”) on Investor-State Dispute Settlement (“ISDS”) Reform convened for its 48th session in April 2024 in New York to continue its work, among others, on the establishment of an advisory centre (“AC”) on international investment dispute resolution (“IIDR”). In light of the discussions during the past three sessions from October 2023…

Adverse Inference, Arbitrator Bias, Decision Making, International arbitration

(Creel, García-Cuéllar, Aiza y Enríquez)/ /Leave a comment

Mid-hearing, the Arbitral Tribunal in Sea Search-Armada, LLC v. The Republic of Colombia (PCA Case 2023-37) received an application for intervention from the Kingdom of Spain. The letter asserted Spain’s claim to certain rights over the San José Galeon, a “Spanish Navy warship sunk in naval combat against an English squadron in 1708” near the…

Belgium, BIT, Court of Appeal, Enforcement, Final Award, Poland, Public Policy, Set aside an arbitral award

(Crowell & Moring) and (A&O Shearman)/ /Leave a comment

The Brussels first instance court attracted significant attention in 2022 by deciding to set aside an UNCITRAL award regarding a claim brought against the Republic of Poland under the US-Poland bilateral investment treaty (“US-Poland BIT”).  This was the first time we had seen a Belgian court set aside an investment treaty award.  The first instance…

Africa, Conference, LIDW 2024

(Trinity International LLP)/ /Leave a comment

As investors increasingly look to diversify their investments whilst seeking higher returns, and emerging nations continue the push to industrialise, to develop their infrastructure and to grow their economies, the emerging economies have become a hotbed of activity for investors, developers, and legal professionals around the world. This post considers why all eyes seem to…

CIArb, Climate change, Commercial Arbitration, Conference, Investor-State arbitration

(Erasmus University Rotterdam)/ /Leave a comment

On 6 February 2024, the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CiArb) European Branch/French Chapter held a seminar at the Paris office of Bird & Bird moderated by Jalal El Ahdab (Bird&Bird) and Alexandre Malan (Belot Malan & Associés) on a crucial topic: Environmental, Social, and Governance (“ESG”) issues and their impact on international arbitration. The panel discussion…

Arbitration Agreement, Arbitration clause, Arbitration institution, Europe, Netherlands

, (Houthoff)/ /1 Comment

On 21 February 2024, the District Court of Amsterdam (“the court”) rendered a decision in summary proceedings. The key question that arose from this decision was: Can parties facing an unclear arbitration agreement ask the national courts to resolve their disputes instead? The issue of ambiguity surrounding arbitration agreements is not a novel phenomenon (see,…

Due process, German Federal Constitutional Court, Germany, SchiedsVZ

(University of Konstanz)/ /Leave a comment

The analysis of the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht – the “Court”) dated 3 June 2022 (1 BvR 2103/16) in the Pechstein case (the “Pechstein Decision”, also covered in a previous post) shows constitutional limits to arbitration agreements that are externally determined, i.e., agreements whose content can be de facto determined unilaterally by…

California International Arbitration Week, Technology

(Devlin Law Firm) and (Quandary Peak Research)/ /Leave a comment
Young California Arbitration (Young CalArb)

On March 14, 2024, the 3rd California International Arbitration Week featured an event titled ‘Resolving Tomorrow’s Conflicts Today: An In-House Perspective on Technology Disputes from the Tech Mecca,’ organized by California Arbitration and the California Lawyers Association and hosted at JAMS. The session, moderated by Hon. James Ware (Arbitrator/Mediator, JAMS), included speakers such as Barbara…

Artificial Intelligence, California International Arbitration Week

(California Arbitration Membership Committee) and / /Leave a comment
Young California Arbitration (Young CalArb)

On March 14, 2024, as part of the 3rd Annual California International Arbitration Week, the Silicon Valley Arbitration and Mediation Center (SVAMC) sponsored a roundtable discussion about the recently proposed SVAMC Guidelines on the Use of AI in Arbitration and the SVAMC AI Task Force’s efforts to build consensus and engagement among the global ADR…

Artificial Intelligence, ICCA, ICCA Hong Kong 2024, Innovation

(CMS Hasche Sigle, Hong Kong LLP) and (The University of Hong Kong)/ /Leave a comment

This is the fourth post in ICCA’s series of reports on the ICCA 2024 Congress (“Congress”). It reports on the last day of the Congress on Wednesday, 8 May 2024, which looked at the present and into the future to determine how new technologies may shape the human experience in international arbitration.   International Arbitration:…

Brazil, Latin America

(Souto, Correa, Cesa, Lummertz & Amaral Advogados)/ /Leave a comment

Previous posts have addressed advocacy techniques in arbitration (for example, see here, here, here, here, and here). This is not an attempt to summarize them, but rather to present the topic in a different light. As psychologists have long discovered, information that provides imagery and vividness has a greater impact on inferences and memory retention….

Advocacy, Arbitration Procedure, Costs in arbitral proceedings, Ethics, ICCA, ICCA Hong Kong 2024

, (CMS Hasche Sigle, Hong Kong LLP), (The University of Hong Kong), (Tanner De Witt), and / /Leave a comment

This is the third post in ICCA’s series of reports on the ICCA 2024 Congress (“Congress”), which took place in Hong Kong. This post reports on the events of Tuesday, 7 May 2024, the second full day of the Congress. As noted in the coverage of Day 1 of the Congress, the theme of this…

Arbitrator's decision-making, Arbitrators, Bias, Culture, ICCA, ICCA Hong Kong 2024, New York Convention, sociology of international arbitration

, (CMS Hasche Sigle, Hong Kong LLP), (Tanner De Witt), (The University of Hong Kong), and / /Leave a comment

This is the second post in ICCA’s series of reports on the ICCA 2024 Congress (“Congress”), which took place in Hong Kong. This post reports on the events of Monday, 6 May 2024, the first full day of the Congress. As informed by ICCA President, Dr Stanimir Alexandrov, in the opening post to this series,…