“In negotiations of all kinds, the greater your capacity for empathy – the more carefully you try to understand all of the other side’s motivations, interests and constraints – the more options you tend to have for potentially resolving the dispute or deadlock”. Deepak Malhotra of Harvard Business School quoted by John Sturrock in Process…
In light of several recent developments in Morocco, its status as an international arbitration hub in Africa is worth a focus. This blog post will specifically consider the rise and recognition of economic opportunities in Africa, Morocco’s lead as a diplomatic power in Africa, the country’s experience with investment and commercial arbitration, and the emergence…
One of the main objectives of investment arbitration, as a feature of international investment law, is to provide a neutral forum for the parties in dispute. Neutrality is necessary because the parties are fundamentally different: while the investor is a private entity, the state is a sovereign entity with sovereign immunity. However, the scenario of…
On 1 and 2 March 2019, a group of international humanitarian law (IHL) and international investment law (IIL) experts came together for a workshop at Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany. The event, organized and hosted by Tobias Ackermann (Bochum) and Sebastian Wuschka (Hamburg / Bochum), dealt with the interplay between IIL and the legal regimes that apply…
The UK Supreme Court will hear an appeal from Halliburton Company v Chubb Bermuda Insurance Ltd [2018] EWCA Civ 817 on whether an arbitrator may accept appointments in multiple references concerning the overlapping subject matter with only one common party, without giving rise to an appearance of bias and without disclosure. As it stands, the…
Anecdotally, the time and cost of arbitrating international construction disputes is one of the biggest sources of dissatisfaction. This was reflected in the discussion on the final day of London International Disputes Week at the international construction disputes panels. This is unsurprising as previous Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) surveys identified cost and lack…
Introduction According to UNESCO, the first caravans aiming to connect East (China) with West (Central Asia) were dispatched in 138 AD, leading eventually to the formulation of what we know today as the Great Silk Road. The Uzbek corridor, consisting of Bukhara, Tashkent, and Samarkand, provided key routes for trade and also served as a…
During its most active years, between 1982 and 1994, the nine members of the Iran-US Claims Tribunal (at all times 3 from Iran, 3 from the US, and three “neutral” arbitrators) ruled on hundreds of disputes, sometimes involving particularly fraught points of international law, all this while applying and interpreting the UNCITRAL Rules of arbitration…
On April 12, 2019, the Republic of Djibouti (“Djibouti”) signed the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States (“ICSID Convention” or “Convention”). To date, the Convention has been signed by 163 countries and ratified by 154 countries. Why is Djibouti signing the ICSID Convention at a time when…
Introduction Unlike other pillars of arbitration like recognition-enforcement of foreign awards and independence-impartiality of arbitrators, the Kompetenz-Kompetenz rule is far from a universal standard. Each jurisdiction has a particular rule, with clear distinctions between the approaches adopted, for example, by the US, the UK, France, Switzerland and China.1)For a comprehensive comparison of these legal systems,…
What drew you to the world of International Arbitration? Before moving to the United States, I practiced law in Croatia where I gained litigation experience, among other. I love the dispute resolution aspect of legal work, and especially that of advocating for clients before a court or tribunal. During my Bluebook traineeship at the Legal…
As the recent launch of the Prague Rules and the discussions at the Paris Arbitration Week 2019 and London International Disputes Week 2019 have shown, discussions around time and cost efficiency in arbitration remain a key concern of users and the arbitration community. This article accordingly reports on the launch event held by Delos Dispute…
We are happy to inform you that the latest issue of the journal is now available and includes the following contributions: ARTICLES Klaus Peter Berger: Common Law v. Civil Law in International Arbitration – The Beginning or the End? The presentation of the Prague Rules on the Efficient Conduct of Proceedings in International Arbitration…
Introduction On 9 December 2018, the UAE adopted Cabinet Resolution No. 57 of 2018, which entered into force on 16 February 2019 (the “Cabinet Resolution“). The Cabinet Resolution introduces significant amendments to the UAE Civil Procedure Code (Federal Law No. 11 of 1992), which considerably enhance a wide array of procedures before the UAE onshore…
On March 19, 2019, an ICC tribunal seated in Paris and comprised of Claus von Wobeser (chairman), Francesca Mazza, and Horacio Grigera Naón, issued a procedural order staying the arbitration proceedings between Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (“PDVSA” for its acronym in Spanish, the Venezuelan state-owned oil company) and Petróleos Paraguayos (“PETROPAR” for its acronym in…
Arbitral tribunals have, in various instances, allowed parties to rely on documents obtained illegally as evidence. Practically, however, such documents are of a privileged character, e.g. emails exchanged between attorneys and clients, any information related to a set of confidential proceedings or communications between a psychotherapist and a patient. Privileged documents deserve higher legal protection…
Introduction On 8 May 2019, the Arbitration Amendment Act 2019 (the Amendment Act) came into force. It amends the Arbitration Act 1996 and is a much watered-down version of the original proposal. The Amendment Act makes three changes: (i) the insertion of a new waiver sub-clause in Article 16 of Schedule 1 of the Arbitration Act (which…
The CERSA (CNRS, University Paris II Panthéon-Assas) organized its fourth event in a series of seminars on selected topics in international investment law and ISDS. On 28 March 2019, a distinguished panel of practitioners and academics gathered in Paris to exchange views on ‘Environmental Considerations in Investment Arbitration’. The discussion was moderated by Catharine Titi…
The following article is the result of a collective project, carried out by one of the groups of the Young ICCA Mentoring Programme, comprised of Juan Pablo Valdivia Pizarro, Andreea I. Nica and Maria Teder, as Mentees, Vladimir Khvalei, as Mentor, and Laurence Ponty, as Buddy. With the benefit of Vladimir Khvalei being one of…
Introduction: the Arbitration Amendment Act 2019 Arbitration law reform is often portrayed in terms of relentless progress towards enlightenment: towards greater party autonomy, increased efficiency, reduced judicial interference, and more certain enforcement. In important areas of arbitral law and practice, that is an accurate narrative: the acceptance of the principles of Kompetenz-Kompetenz and separability, for…
A Mareva injunction or a freezing injunction is a form of ad personam interim relief, which is usually sought during the pendency of court or arbitration proceedings or once the proceedings are completed and a verdict is rendered, but before the judgement/award is enforced and executed. This form of injunction is essentially sought by a…
Introduction Nearly 20 years after the enactment of the Swedish Arbitration Act of 1999, a revised version of the Swedish Arbitration Act entered into force on March 1st, 2019.1) See also here (reporting on the background and process of revising the Swedish Arbitration Act). As addressed below, this update enacts improvements to Sweden’s former arbitration law,…
The session on Energy Disputes of the LIDW 2019, hosted by Latham & Watkins and chaired by Sophie Lamb QC and Philip Clifford QC, took place on 9 May 2019 at Painters’ Hall. The session was divided into two panels. The first panel, titled ‘A commercial landscape in transition – lessons from the past as…
This post aims at highlighting an inconsistency in the law of the European Union (“EU”) in regards to the comparison of the treatment of Bilateral Investment Treaties (“BITs”) and Double Taxation Treaties (“DTTs”) concluded between EU Member States. The inconsistency lies in the diametrically different approaches adopted by EU law and its institutions (“EU Institutions”)…
