On April 22, 2013, representatives of Members States of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (“ALBA” for its acronym in Spanish) met in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the manner in which their interests are affected by the activities carried out by transnational companies, under a reunion known as the First Ministerial Conference of Latin American States affected by Transnational Interests.

Founded in 2004, ALBA is an international cooperation organization which is mainly associated with socialist and social democratic governments, being its main purpose to achieve regional economic integration based on a vision of social welfare. Its current members ar [...]

The Singapore International Arbitration Centre (“SIAC”) has issued new rules that came into force on April 1, 2013. The rules changes are accompanied by new Practice Notes for cases administered by SIAC under its rules and the UNCITRAL rules that also came into force on the same date. While the changes do not reflect a significant overhaul of the prior version of the institution’s rules, they do contain important changes of which practitioners should be aware.

The 2013 rules are the fifth set of rules issued by SIAC, which promulgated previous versions in 1991, 1997, 2007, and 2010. The SIAC rules are one of several sets of arbitral rules to be updated in the last few years; other [...]

Shanghai’s Recent Reaction

As a recent development of the ongoing conflicts within the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration (CIETAC), the CIETAC Shanghai Sub-Commission has now officially been renamed Shanghai International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission; it will also use Shanghai International Arbitration Center (“SHIAC”) concurrently as official name. (See official announcement of the SHIAC). On 11 April 2013, SHIAC and Council for the Promotion of International Trade Shanghai jointly held a press conference and unveiling ceremony.

The Shanghai Municipal Government approved the name change, clarifying the status of the new commission. During the ceremony, [...]

and Thomas Baconin, Orange,  trainee in International Expertise & Conflict Resolution, Litigation, CSR & Real Estate

On the 15th of April in the prestigious venue of the Hotel de Ville in Paris, the non-profit organization Paris Place d’Arbitrage introduced its new ad hoc “Paris Arbitration Rules”, in front of 200 law practitioners from the arbitration community. These ad hoc rules present themselves as an alternative to the UNCITRAL rules, often considered as too heavy and as such, not satisfactory for the Parties. In light of the ever growing dissatisfaction of arbitration users with the cost and length of international arbitration proceedings, this initiative should be welcomed by [...]

Construction work at the Florence Chamber of Commerce has forced the city’s arbitration and mediation services to relocate to new offices the city was able to scrounge up.

This is the view from the fourth-floor conference room assigned to a mediation I attended yesterday. Talk about coping well in the face of adversity…

Throughout many parts of Europe, municipal chambers of commerce have long helped businesses resolve their disputes. Historically, they have provided arbitration services; more recently, and more frequently, they are adding mediation.

In broad terms, the chambers are structured according to two models, at least in the way there are perceived by parties.

In a country of [...]

In the case of HKL Group Co Ltd v Rizq International Holdings Pte Ltd the Singapore High Court (the “High Court”) has considered whether an arbitration clause in a contract which provided for disputes to be settled by arbitration in Singapore by a non-existent institution under the rules of the ICC was inoperable. The High Court found that the arbitration clause in question contained the necessary elements and was workable as long as the parties were able to secure the agreement of an arbitral institution in Singapore to conduct the arbitration.

The facts of the case are as follows. HKL Group Co Ltd (“HKL”) entered into an agreement with Rizq International Holdings Pte Ltd (“Rizq”) for the s [...]