On 19 October 2021, Mr Bret Walker AO SC delivered the 2021 CIArb Australian Annual Lecture as part of ACICA’s Australian Arbitration Week 2021. Mr Walker’s lecture, titled ‘Privacy or Secrecy? Open Justice Values as a Challenge to Arbitral Procedure’, offered a thought-provoking examination of what he termed the ‘problematic nature’ of secrecy in commercial…
Lion Mexico Consolidated v. Mexico1)Lion Mexico Consolidated L.P. v. United Mexican States (ICSID Case No. ARB(AF)/15/2). represents the first positive finding of denial of justice in the history of NAFTA2)In 1999, a NAFTA tribunal analysed and rejected for the first time a claim for denial of justice in Robert Azinian v. Mexico. and one of…
On the second day of Hong Kong Arbitration Week 2021, Debevoise & Plimpton (“Debevoise”) hosted a virtual panel on “Fraud in Arbitration – Overcoming Limitations on Tribunal Powers”, exploring the strategies that may be employed to uncover and overcome fraud in an arbitration, including by invoking judicial power in support of arbitral proceedings. Panelists included…
In the latest episode of the intra-EU investment arbitration saga, the CJEU ruled on 26 October 2021, in Poland v. PL Holdings (Case C-109/20), that EU Member States are precluded from concluding with investors from another EU Member State an ad hoc arbitration agreement identical to an arbitration clause of an international treaty deemed invalid…
Hong Kong Arbitration Week 2021 is upon us, with a number of exciting in-person, virtual and hybrid events. On 27 October 2021, the ADR in Asia Conference was held, focussing on “Tomorrow’s Disputes Today”. After opening remarks by The Honourable Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng GBM, GBS, SC, JP, and an update on developments at…
On day one of the Hong Kong Arbitration Week 2021, Latham & Watkins LLP (“Latham & Watkins”) hosted a virtual workshop to explore the role of renewables in a rapidly changing world and how this growth will impact disputes in renewables and other energy markets. Ing Loong Yang, Partner at Latham & Watkins (Hong Kong),…
In the past year, there has been a paradigm shift from a norm of in-person hearings to a norm of virtual hearings. As part of the 10th Hong Kong Arbitration Week, KCAB INTERNATIONAL and the Korean Council for International Arbitration (KOCIA) invited arbitration practitioners, mostly based in the dynamic Korean arbitration market, to share their…
Sarah has been HKIAC Secretary-General since September 2016. During her time at the helm, the HKIAC has, among other actions, released its 2018 Administered Arbitration Rules, overseen the changes arising from the 2019 arrangement between Mainland China and Hong Kong regarding interim measures for arbitration (“Interim Measures Arrangement”), became the first foreign arbitral institution to…
The Presidential Commission on Supreme Court of the United States, established earlier this year by President Biden, released a draft Report last week assessing recent proposals to restructure the U.S. Supreme Court. Readers from outside the United States, as well as many within, can be forgiven for seeing no apparent connection between that Report and…
The proposed Article 91 in the Draft Amendment to PRC Arbitration Law (the “Draft Amendment”), which was issued by the PRC Ministry of Justice in July 2021, introduces ad hoc arbitration: “The parties to a commercial dispute involving foreign elements may agree on an institutional arbitration or directly agree that it shall be arbitrated by…
On 14 September 2021, a Decree (no. 34) by the government of Dubai (currently only available in Arabic) (the Decree) abolished two of Dubai’s most successful arbitration institutions: the Dubai Maritime Arbitration Centre (EMAC) and the DIFC-LCIA Centre.1)The DIFC-LCIA was established as a joint venture between Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), Dubai Arbitration Institute (DAI),…
As part of Canadian Arbitration Week, the 2021 ICC Canada Conference, titled Leaning into the Future, was designed to facilitate critical thinking and debate on several important topics in international arbitration. The focus of the conference was decidedly post-pandemic, exploring fault lines and cleavages in the system of international arbitration as we know it today,…
Just about everyone in the legal profession has made a small mathematical error in front of others and quipped, “well, that’s why I went to law school”. Clients hire lawyers for our legal reasoning, not for our abilities in arithmetic. For this reason, supplementing skilled legal analysis with input from industry and quantum experts is…
Canadian Arbitration Week ran online from September 20 – 24, 2021 under the theme of adaptation and acceleration. A timely focus as the pandemic continues to accelerate sweeping changes in the legal world. The 2021 YCAP Fall Symposium titled “New World, New Rules” took place on September 23 and addressed the theme in a session…
This post is the first in a series of three regarding the potential impact of economic sanctions on arbitral and financial institutions. The series addresses critical issues faced by such institutions as a result of restrictions on transfers of funds under primary and secondary sanctions programmes. This first entry discusses the potential effects of asset…
We lost a friend on 9 October 2021. While the news of Martin Hunter’s death filled us with grief, our memories of Martin are quite the opposite. It seems right to share them with you on the Kluwer Arbitration Blog, which he supported from its creation. We are the “M”s – Martin’s research assistants,…
I recently co-chaired with Gustav Flecke-Giammarco a Delos roundtable on this topic, at the kind invitation of its President and Co-Founder, Hafez Virjee. The topic links to a broader theme: how to be an international arbitration practitioner and manage some balance while at it? It can be tricky, and I am conscious that especially during…
If you are a party to a lease agreement or a grant of right to use commercial space in Macau, tax considerations may now be critical for determining whether “to arbitrate or not to arbitrate”. In fact, aside from the typical advantages of arbitration over litigation, tax reduction has now become an additional advantage for…
On 1 September 2021, Global Arbitration Review (GAR) launched a new diversity-themed addition to its GAR Connect series, “Breaking In: How international arbitration becomes more diverse.”1)The authors would like to thank Racial Equality for Arbitration Lawyers (R.E.A.L.) for providing a scholarship to attend the event. The event, co-chaired by Adriana Braghetta (Adriana Braghetta Lawyers), Nayla…
Subscribers to KluwerArbitration.com enjoy access to the ICCA Yearbook Commercial Arbitration. A selection of major CRCICA awards concerning contracts for the supply of commodities and dealing with a variety of notorious issues – parallel arbitration proceedings, non-signatory parties, res judicata, corruption, and force majeure ‑‑ is now available on KluwerArbitration.com. Two awards, rendered in Madrid…
How do English and BVI courts address inconsistencies in arbitration clauses? The English Court of Appeal decision in AdActive Media Inc v Ingrouille [2021] EWCA Civ 313 demonstrates that English courts will make every effort to honour the express terms of a contract. In AdActive, the Court of Appeal examined three apparently inconsistent dispute resolution…
The purpose of a dispute resolution clause is to provide for a process and a forum through which disputes can be resolved efficiently. However, dispute resolution clauses are too often ignored and relegated to the end of contractual negotiations or considered boilerplate provisions without regards to the overall context. Issues may arise from the parties’…
Introduction – What is Binance? The rise of the cryptocurrency industry has spawned some of the fastest growing and most profitable companies since the original dotcom boom, with those like Coinbase, which was valued at almost US$100 billion after its recent IPO, being prime examples. However, Coinbase, as a cryptocurrency exchange, is dwarfed by the…
Swiss substantive law allows a debtor to pay a debt in the national currency of the place of payment even though the debt is actually owed in a foreign currency, except for cases where the contract expressly requires fulfillment of the debt in “actual currency” by using the term “actual” or words to that effect…
