A week ago today, it was my privilege to participate in the annual UNCITRAL/VIAC/YAAP Joint Conference, addressing hot topics in international arbitration. The conference successfully considered many key topics, including my topic, liability of counsel in international arbitrations. This topic, similar to my recent book topic (Kluwer Law International, Third-Party Funding in International Arbitration), is receiving a lot of attention with limited actual changes.

In 2011, the IBA released their latest guidelines on this area, entitled The IBA Principles on Conduct for the Legal Profession (referred to generally herein as Guidelines), which replace a much older version, the Code of Ethics from [...]

There are many clients who are often engaged in industrious works that result in disputes. Typically, the applicable arbitral agreements requirement submitting claims to international arbitration and, in this author’s opinion, appropriately so. However, these same clients may also be subject to frequent claim assertions that lack any true merit. Despite this, there is not truly a mechanism in place to protect such clients against having to fully defend themselves against such frivolous claims.

Under the ICSID rules the situation is different. Originating in the 2006 Amendments, Rule 41(5) allows a party to object to a claim that is “manifestly without legal merit.” This rule has, over [...]

On September 27, 2012, the Netherlands Arbitration Institute’s Jong Oranje group was fortunate enough to host an event on third-party funding. Yes, a common and hot topic these days and certainly not my first blog on the matter, but I was one of the speakers at the event and felt it worthwhile to mention.
The other two speakers were Mick Smith, Co-Founder of Calunius Capital LLC (“Calunius”) in London, and Sara Liesker, founder of Liesker Legal NV (“Liesker”) in Breda, The Netherlands. Contrasting the two experiences was indeed intriguing. I have recently co-authored (along with Victoria Shannon, Deputy Director at the International Court of Arbitration – ICC – in NYC) a book on [...]

Last Monday I was honored with the opportunity to serve as one of the speakers for the annual ICC New York Conference. With an overflowing turnout and impressive list of panelists, it was a successful event. One interesting event of note was that the ICC took this opportunity to release the ICC Commission Report on States, State Entities and ICC Arbitration. We were privileged with the attendance of the co-Chairman of the ICC Commission on Arbitration’s Task Force on Arbitration Involving States or State Entities, who addressed some of the key portions of the report, Mr. Eduardo Silva Romero.

The ICC Commission Report explains its own purpose as explaining “how ICC arbitration works in r [...]

The saga with Yukos Oil and its nationalization – and the effects on its various related entities – has been ongoing for quite some time. As reported in the news of late (see e.g. Business Wire.com and Cisarbitration.com), in late July an arbitral award was rendered under the auspices of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce. This award ordered the government of Russia to pay Spanish investors whose investment was damaged through nationalization. The claimants in this case – the Spanish investors – were funded by the majority shareholder of Yukos Oil, Menatap; to my knowledge no legal rights to the recovery existed for this shareholder.

The basis of the arbitral claims were founded in t [...]

On September 10, 2012, The International Chamber of Commerce (“ICC”) in New York will be hosting the seventh annual conference. Located in New York City, the ICC Conference will be looking at investor-state arbitration, specifically under the rules of the ICC.

The ICC has been working hard to build up its profile in the international arbitration niche, investor-state arbitration. Unfortunately, they have only been able to handle a very few cases (According to a GAR article published on March 15, 2010, stated that at the time there were 9 investor-state arbitrations currently being administered by the ICC) (see ICC Task Force Considers State-Related Arbitrations by Allison Ross at www.glo [...]