International arbitration is on the rise in South Africa. This is partly a result of the country’s new arbitration law, which was passed in 2017, but now the process has been given a further boost by the publication by the Arbitration Foundation of Southern Africa (AFSA) of its draft International Arbitration Rules (the Draft Rules),…
On 11 August 2020 the LCIA unveiled the long-awaited update to its Arbitration Rules (the 2020 Rules). The 2020 Rules will become effective on 1 October 2020 and will apply to arbitrations commenced from that date onwards. They will supersede the 2014 edition of the LCIA Arbitration Rules (the 2014 Rules). The 2020 Rules introduce…
Over the past decade, many arbitrators and international arbitration practitioners have seen a consistent increase in parties’ interest in bringing dispositive motions within the context of the arbitration proceedings. Some commentators—especially from common law traditions—suggest that such motions should play a more prominent role in international arbitration. In the same time frame, as discussed below,…
On 28 July 2020, the Cross-Institutional Task Force on Gender Diversity in Arbitral Appointments and Proceedings released its long-awaited Report in the eighth volume of the International Council for Commercial Arbitration (ICCA) Reports Series. Established in 2019, the Task Force brings together 17 leading international arbitration institutions, law firms and gender diversity initiatives to publish…
On 1 October 2019, the Arrangement Concerning Mutual Assistance in Court-ordered Interim Measures in Aid of Arbitral Proceedings by the Courts of the Mainland of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (the “Arrangement”) came into force. It was previously reported on the blog here and here. On 8 October 2019, the first interim measure under…
In its judgment of 26 November 2019 (I ACa 457/18), the Warsaw Court of Appeal gave its view on the duties of arbitrators and counsel in cases involving state aid. In a well-argued decision, the Court reversed the decision of the lower court and annulled an award rendered by a prominent international tribunal on the…
In March 2020, the official Beijing judiciary website published the ground-breaking Big Data Research Report on Cases of the Beijing Fourth Intermediate People’s Court Involving Judicial Review of Arbitration (北京市第四中级人民法院仲裁司法审查案件大数据研究报告) (the “Report”). Prepared by the China Arbitration Institute of China University of Political Science and Law (中国政法大学仲裁研究院), the Report covers 18 months of decisions involving “judicial review”…
In BBA and others v BAZ and another appeal [2020] SGCA 53, the Singapore Court of Appeal (“SGCA”), in refusing to set aside an arbitral award, held that issues of time bar which arise from the expiry of statutory limitation periods go towards admissibility and not jurisdiction. Such issues cannot therefore be reviewed de novo…
The data protection regime in the UAE is complicated. Parties to arbitrations that have connections to the UAE, regardless of whether the arbitrations are seated here, should be aware of the data protection regime(s) that may apply to them to ensure that no unintended breaches occur and to consider whether the relevant data protection regulations…
Online dispute resolution (“ODR”) in international arbitration has been made feasible by the development of technology and its use has been stimulated by the Covid-19 pandemic that gave rise to higher demand for virtual proceedings. UNCITRAL Technical Notes on Online Dispute Resolution defines ODR as “a mechanism for resolving disputes through the use of electronic…
Just like many of us have learned to work remotely these past few months, those leading the efforts to reform international arbitration have also had to endure the constraints imposed by the pandemic. At the first-ever virtual ITA-ASIL conference, held on 24 June 2020, Professor Chiara Giorgetti from the University of Richmond School of Law…
On 19 June 2020, the new sanctions-related amendments1)Federal Law No. 171-FZ dated 8 June 2020, introducing the amendments (text in Russian). to the Russian Commercial (Arbitrazh) Procedure Code entered into force. The main objective of the law is to protect the interests of Russian natural and legal persons who are unable to effectively resolve their…
On 12 June 2020, the Kingdom of Tonga (“Tonga“) acceded to the United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards 1958 (the “Convention“), being the 164th state party to do so. In the context of the Pacific region, Tonga is the 6th state to accede to the Convention after the Marshall…
The lack of a binding effect of a State’s right to interpret treaties has been raised as one of the reasons to reform the current Investor-State Dispute Settlement (“ISDS”) regime. The movement to reform the current ISDS regime led to the UNCITRAL Working Group III discussion (“WG III discussion”), which has been addressed in this…
We are happy to inform you that the latest issue of the journal is now available and includes the following contributions: Maxi SCHERER, Remote Hearings in International Arbitration: An Analytical Framework Remote hearings are nothing new, but the Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19) crisis has forced international arbitration out of its comfort zone. Parties, counsel, and arbitrators…
The relationship between developing countries and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) has not been smooth, to say the least. Several developing countries such as Bolivia, Venezuela and Ecuador have pulled out from the ICSID Convention. India is one of the prominent developing countries that has refrained from joining the ICSID Convention,…
Virtual hearings are not a new idea. The arbitration community only started to seriously discuss the benefits and the logistics of having virtual hearings in lieu of physical hearings when the world was put on pause by COVID-19 in around February 2020. It is not easy to organize a virtual hearing, let alone all the…
We continue our series with four of our fellow editors sharing their perspectives on working on the Blog and predictions concerning the future of the arbitration world: Daniela Páez (Assistant Editor for Latin America), Ashutosh Ray (Assistant Editor), Christine Sim (Assistant Editor for Southeast Asia), and Sadaff Habib (Assistant Editor for Africa). Daniela Páez…
It is undisputed that the Arbitration Law of the People’s Republic of China (“the Arbitration Law”) has greatly contributed to the establishment, development and improvement of China’s current arbitration system. However, due to the fast-moving socio-economic realities and the ever-developing legal system of China, the provisions of the Arbitration Law have gradually begun to lag…
On Monday 6 July 2020, during the first day of the Paris Arbitration Week, Reed Smith held a webinar on ‘Arbitrating allegations of corruption in international business transactions – problems and solutions‘, a highly controversial topic which has gained much attention in the arbitration community in the last decade. The event focused on a series…
In the recent decision in SAS Institute Inc v World Programming Limited [2020] EWCA Civ 599 (“SAS”), the English Court of Appeal addressed issues including the situs of a debt, the proper approach to anti-enforcement injunctions, and how considerations of comity arise in the enforcement of foreign decisions. Facts In 2009, SAS, a North…
The COVID-19 pandemic has already created market volatility and adversely affected the financial position of companies and individuals around the world. This post explores two main ideas: (1) whether the pandemic is likely to result in an upturn in recourse to third party funding arrangements; and (2) whether arbitrating parties should anticipate increased exposure to…
As a result of coronavirus, sanctions, for once, have not been grabbing the headlines. Unlike the media, the Russian legislative bodies have recently shown keen interest in the topic of sanctions as they have adopted a draft law from last year granting persons and companies affected by the sanctions against Russia with a right to…
Awards are final—mostly. Many institutional rules allow arbitrators to correct clerical errors in their awards, but prohibit revisions to the merits of their decisions. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit signaled in a recent case that it will defer to arbitrators in interpreting institutional rules regarding the scope of their correction authority,…
