“With over 20,000 contracts executed each year, it is simply impossible to address the problems of cost and delay in arbitration through artful drafting.” That was the gist of comments made by a general counsel of a major corporation at last month’s ITA workshop. To which another general counsel on the panel replied, “No, we…
The beauty of the World Cup, and especially this game, is that it’s a marvelous opportunity to demonstrate one small piece of lingering English superiority. This “showdown” between England … is in fact a made-for-history moment to score one back for the old country. It’s the one darned thing they know they can beat America…
At the recent Northwestern Law School conference on the Israeli-Arab Dispute and International Law I had the good fortune to address one of the few bright spots in current Arab-Israeli relations. Most international law scholars of the Arab-Israeli conflict seem to know little about international trade, and focus almost exclusively on the laws of war…
Yesterday a federal court in New York granted Chevron’s request for discovery of outtakes from the 2009 documentary Crude about the multi-billion dollar litigation in Ecuador. Chevron’s request was pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1782, which authorizes a judge in the United States to order discovery of evidence to be used in proceedings before a foreign…
The ABA Journal has an interesting article on the Americanization of international arbitration. There’s nothing particularly new to our readers in this article. It’s a theme that my friend and colleague Tom Stipanowich has written about extensively. I’ve written a bit about the subject as well. But the fact that the story is being told…
In the long-running battle between Chevron and Ecuador over environmental damage, a federal court in New York has denied Ecuador’s motion to stay arbitration of a Ecuador-U.S. BIT claim. In September 2009, Chevron filed a notice of arbitration alleging, among other things, that “Ecuador has breached … the Ecuador-United States BIT, including its obligation to…
As I have noted earlier, there is a pitched battle between victims of Pan Am 73 terrorist hijacking over the distribution of treaty funds secured by the United States for American victims in a 2008 diplomatic settlement with Libya. The treaty and Executive Order stipulate that the money shall be distributed solely for the benefit…
ICSID has just published a report on its caseload, and there is plenty of interesting data. The one that particularly caught my attention is the chart on the basis of consent invoked to establish ICSID jurisdiction. Sixty-two percent of all cases came from Bilateral Investment Treaties, while twenty-two percent came from investment contracts. An additional…
We are pleased to announce that Kluwer Arbitration Blog will add two new permanent contributors to the blog: Alexis Mourre of the law firm of Castaldi Mourre & Partners in Paris, France, and the Institute for Transnational Arbitration in Dallas, Texas. Alexis Mourre is a founding partner of Castaldi Mourre & Partners, a 25-lawyer firm…
My former Pepperdine colleague, Kathryn Lee Boyd, has just filed a fascinating complaint relating to the distribution of funds secured by a treaty between the United States and Libya on behalf of U.S. victims of Libyan-sponsored terrorism.
The Fifth Circuit earlier this month issued a highly unusual decision addressing whether state law could “reverse preempt” the New York Convention. As any student of international arbitration knows, state law occasionally attempts to limit the enforceability of arbitration agreements. Such a policy is preempted by the New York Convention as implemented by the Federal…
This week the good folks at Kluwer have launched a new blog, Kluwer Construction Blog. According to the press release, Managing Editor of the blog, Sarah Thomas, partner and international projects expert at Pinsent Masons, will draw contributions from a panel of pre-eminent construction lawyers and barristers covering Europe, the United States, Canada, Africa, South…
My colleague Trey Childress has a nice summary of the recent decision by a federal court in Florida in Osorio v. Dole Food Company to refuse to enforce a $97 million Nicaraguan judgment. Here’s the key excerpt of the decision: “the evidence before the Court is that the judgment in this case did not arise…
International arbitration is an odd world of the elite and pampered celebrities and the quiet and unassuming masses. On the one hand there is the glamorous world of investment arbitration. She may be the new kid on the block, but she gets all the attention from the paparazzi. On the other hand, there is the…
The recent ICSID arbitration award in Europe Cement Investment & Trade S.A. v. Turkey raise interesting questions of how to regulate fraud in international arbitration. Here is the key holding of the tribunal with respect to fraud regarding an alleged ownership interest in the relevant companies.
I have been reading with interest the ILA’s Final Report and Recommendation on Res Judicata and Arbitration adopted at the 2006 Toronto conference. Recommendation 2 provides that: The conclusive and preclusive effects of arbitral awards in further arbitral proceedings set forth below need not necessarily be governed by national law and may be governed by…
As international arbitration becomes ever more sophisticated and complex, one wonders whether it will continue to have the institutional capacity to address its protean tasks. Claims in the billions of dollars are now common. Thousands of individuals are affected by the outcome of a single arbitration decision. And the complexity of the cases is such…
In submitting his instructions to the American delegation attending the 1907 Second Hague Conference, Secretary of State Elihu Root argued that the Permanent Court of Arbitration system needed radical improvement. In his instructions he wrote: There can be no doubt that the principal objection to arbitration rests, not upon the unwillingness of nations to submit…
We at Kluwer Arbitration blog are most pleased to welcome Andrew Newcombe as our newest contributor. Andrew teaches commercial, international economic and arbitration law at the Faculty of Law, University of Victoria, Canada. His research and writing focuses primarily on investment treaty law and arbitration. In 2004, he established investment treaty arbitration, a resource website…
By now almost everyone in the international arbitration world is aware of the gavel-to-gavel coverage of the oral pleadings in the so-called Abyei Arbitration before the Permanent Court of Arbitration. The case included many of the leading lights of international arbitration, including Pierre-Marie Dupuy, Stephen Schwebel, and Michael Reisman among the arbitrators, and James Crawford,…
Kluwer Arbitration Blog is pleased to introduce Alexis Mourre as a guest blogger for the next month. Alexis specialises in international arbitration and international litigation with the law firm of Castalde Mourre & Partners in Paris. He has served as counsel to party, co-arbitrator, sole arbitrator or expert in more than 80 international arbitral procedures,…
On Tuesday, the United States Supreme Court decided Iran v. Elahi, a case that appears to fall within a data set of one. As I reported elsewhere, the case is extraordinarily complex, focusing on whether a terrorist victim judgment creditor can attach a confirmed arbitration award rendered in Iran’s favor. Although it involves exotic issues…
One hundred years ago international arbitration was viewed as the great hope for world peace. No international tribunals were yet in existence, but the Permanent Court of Arbitration was up and running and having an extremely successful first decade. There was one key problem with the world of arbitration at that time: the corpus of…
George Bermann, the ALI Reporter for the Restatement (Third) on the U.S. Law of International Commercial Arbitration, presented a wonderful summary of the current progress on the Restatement at the ASIL annual meeting last week. Here are a few key thoughts from my notes. The Restatement is in its early stages and it could take…
