Achmea, CJEU, International arbitration, Intra-EU BITs, ISDS, Supreme Court of Sweden

(SCC Arbitration Institute)/ /1 Comment

Readers of the Kluwer Arbitration Blog will be very familiar with the drama surrounding the European Union’s (EU) pushback against intra-EU investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) as contained in intra-EU bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and in particular the “clap of thunder” Achmea (C-284/16) judgment (on this blog see, e.g. here). According to the Court of Justice…

ADR, Arbitration Industry, Arbitration institution, Arbitration Institutions and Rules, Interviews with Our Editors, USA

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International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR)

  Mr. Martinez, thank you for joining us on the Kluwer Arbitration Blog!  I am thrilled to have this opportunity to share with our readers your perspectives and to highlight interesting initiatives undertaken by the American Arbitration Association’s (AAA’s) International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR).     Before we delve in, would you please briefly introduce…

Appointment of arbitrators, Arbitration Agreement, Arbitration clause, India

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The issue of unilateral appointment of a sole arbitrator by a party has been in the spotlight since the Supreme Court of India’s (“SC”) decision in Perkins Eastman Architects DPC & Anr. v. HSCC (India) Ltd. (“Perkins”) on 26 November 2019. This case largely puts the issue to rest by rendering unilateral sole arbitrator appointments…

Arbitration, Blockchain, Diversity, Transparency

(3 Verulam Buildings & ArbTech) and / /5 Comments

International arbitration (IA) maintains its popularity as business’ premier choice of dispute resolution in the 21st century. This does not mean that the process is free from criticism which raises the question how IA attracts and retains the trust of its users in spite of its limitations. The question of trust comes to the fore…

Arbitration institution, Arbitration Pledge, Diversity, Gender equality, International arbitration, The Pledge

(Trilegal) and (Nishith Desai Associates)/ /2 Comments

Gender and ethnic inequalities in the workplace have been the norm for decades with no effective measures been taken to address them, despite mounting evidence of discrimination and disadvantage faced by women and ethnic minorities across the world. Globally, most corporations, law-firms, government agencies, public offices recognize the need for diversity to enhance decision-making and…

Anti-arbitration, Arbitration Act, Injunction, Malaysia, Parallel Proceedings, Stay of Proceedings, Third Party

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Introduction It is not uncommon for a party (or an alleged party) to an arbitration agreement to apply to the local courts for an injunction to restrain the arbitral proceedings. Such an anti-arbitration injunction is usually applied for on the grounds that the applicant is not in fact a party to the arbitration agreement and…

Ad hoc arbitration, Appointment of arbitrators, Armenia, Interim measures, Place of arbitration

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Since my last article on this Blog on problems concerning ad hoc arbitration in Armenia, new legislative developments have offered an almost complete solution to the issues previously discussed. At the same time, such legislative developments in Armenia have given rise to new unresolved questions which will be explored in this article.   First Issue:…

Arbitration, Crimea, Dispute, Dispute Resolution, Investment Arbitration, Investment law, Turkey

(Bottega Di Bella)/ /Leave a comment

This is a follow-up post that updates on developments in the escalating tensions between Cyprus and Turkey over hydrocarbon explorations in the Mediterranean Sea. In the previous post it was argued that the Italian oil company ENI could launch an arbitration against Turkey under the Italy-Turkey Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) in the aftermath of the…

Arbitration, CAM, DIS, Emergency Arbitrator, Germany, Interim measures, Italy

(Seven Summits Arbitration)/ /1 Comment

Goethe’s famous journey along the Italian peninsula left humanity a collection of verses that still make him the most notorious German author worldwide. Amongst others, he expressed his fascination for the country in these few lines: “Do you know the land where lemon blossom grows? / Amid dark leaves the golden orange glows. /A gentle…

Domestic Courts, Jurisdiction, New York Convention, Unilateral Clauses, Vis Moot

(Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP)/ /4 Comments
Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP

Introduction1)Kevin is a member of BCLP’s International Arbitration and Construction Disputes team in London. He is due to be admitted as a Hong Kong solicitor and currently has no right to practice as a solicitor in England & Wales or Hong Kong. In this year’s Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot (the “2020 Vis…

Arbitral seat, Arbitral Tribunal, Arbitration Act, Arbitration Agreement, English Law, Express choice, Governing Law, Separability, UK

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Introduction Whenever the court is confronted with the task to determine the governing law of an arbitration agreement on the basis of knowing only (1) the stipulated governing law of the main contract and (2) the seat, a three-folded test will be applied. It inquires into (i) express choice, (ii) implied choice and (iii) closest…

Artificial Intelligence, Document Production, Efficiency, International arbitration, Predictive Coding

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Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP

In the last few years, the international arbitration community has started to engage in discussions on the digital transformation of dispute resolution and on artificial intelligence (also on this blog). Scholars and arbitration practitioners have been speculating on how artificial intelligence might be used in arbitral proceedings and the potential impact it might have on…

Arbitration Agreement, Energy Charter Treaty, Russia, Treaty Interpretation, UNCITRAL, Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, Yukos

(Albright StoneBridge Group)/ /2 Comments

Introduction On the 18th of February, the Court of Appeal in The Hague reversed the lower court’s decision annulling the awards rendered against the Russian Federation in Veteran Petroleum Ltd., Yukos Universal Ltd. and Hulley Enterprises Ltd. cases. The awards are thus revived. Notwithstanding the global notoriety and public controversy, the identity of the protagonists,…

Arbitration Agreement, English Law, Estoppel, Jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal, No oral modification clauses, Non-signatory, Separability, UK

(WilmerHale)/ /Leave a comment

On 20 January 2020, the Court of Appeal delivered its judgment in Kabab-Ji SAL (Lebanon) v. Kout Food Group (Kuwait) [2020] EWCA Civ 6. This post will focus on the Court’s findings on “no oral modification” (“NOM”) clauses and the impact that such clauses have on whether non-signatories to a commercial contract can be bound…

Enforcement, ICSID, Intra-EU Investment Arbitration, Investment, Micula, UK Supreme Court

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In a decision likely to enthuse investors willing to enforce intra-EU ICSID awards in the UK, the UK Supreme Court unanimously held yesterday that the UK’s enforcement obligations under the ICSID Convention could not be affected by the EU duty of sincere co-operation (in this case, the question of whether the award obtained by the…

Cybersecurity, Cybersecurity Protocol, Data Protection

(Herbert Smith Freehills)/ /Leave a comment

It would be difficult not to have encountered at least one arbitration event in the past year where data protection or cybersecurity was discussed. As these discussions become more frequent, one may wonder: what are the practical implications of data privacy and cybersecurity on the actual conduct of international arbitrations? This was what the Singapore…

Construction, Construction arbitration, Exclusionary Clauses, India, International Arbitration Procedures, International Commercial Arbitration, SCL-CIArb, UAE, UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts

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A 3-day International Conference on Construction Law & Arbitration was held in December 2019 in New Delhi, co-hosted by the Society of Construction Law-India and the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators-India. During the course of their presentations, the panelists discussed various topics ranging from trends in construction law in the context of arbitration across global jurisdictions…

Arbitrator Challenges, Garcia Armas, Halliburton, Impartiality, Non-disclosure

(WilmerHale)/ /Leave a comment

The award in Serafín García Armas and others v. Venezuela (PCA Case No.2013-3) (administered under the 1976 UNCITRAL Rules) was released in April 2019. This post refers to two decisions by Mr. Hugo Siblesz on challenges brought by Venezuela to the claimants’ appointment of Prof. Guido Tawil as party-appointed arbitrator. Mr. Siblesz was acting in…

Arab World, Dispute Resolution, International dispute resolution, International Law, Iran, United States

(AFFAKI)/ /1 Comment

Amid the celebrations that accompanied the conclusion on 14 July 2015 of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between the E3/EU+3 (China, France, Germany, Russia, the UK and the U.S., with the EU Commission) and Iran, few observers paid attention to the Dispute Resolution Mechanism (DRM) embedded in two paragraphs, ¶¶ 36 and 37,…

Greece, ICSID, Kluwer Mediation Blog, Mediation, Romania, Ukraine

(Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary University of London)/ /Leave a comment

“the money’s not about the money…The key to settlement lay not in the realm of calculation and rationality but in the more opaque social world of face, punishment, justice and emotion.” Charlie Irvine in Not about the money? The end of 2019 and the start of 2020 offered a rich variety of posts on the…

Enforcement, Execution, India, Set aside an arbitral award, Stay of Proceedings

(West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences)/ /Leave a comment

The automatic stay provisions in the Indian arbitration regime have been a matter of a long debate. At first blush, the automatic stay seems like the perfect protection mechanism for any award debtor; however, it often puts the award creditor in a difficult spot. Arbitral awards rarely go unchallenged in India. The automatic stay provision…

AfCFTA, Africa, Morocco, OHADA

(University Cadi Ayyad)/ /Leave a comment

Since 2014, the Casablanca Arbitration Days (CAD) have no doubt become one of the most attended arbitration-related events in Africa. Organized on 5-6 December 2019 at Kenzi Tower Hotel Casablanca by the Casablanca International Mediation and Arbitration Centre (CIMAC), this year marked the fifth edition of CAD under the topic ‘Investing and Doing Business in…

Arbitral seat, Enforceability, Enforcement, Judgment, Jurisdiction

(Blanke Arbitration LLC)/ /Leave a comment

In a ruling of 11 December 2019 (see Cassation No. 8/2019 (JT) – Al Taena: AF Construction Company LLC (formerly Al Futtaim Carillion – Abu Dhabi LLC v. Power Transmission Gulf), the Dubai-DIFC Joint Judicial Tribunal, also commonly known as the “Judicial Tribunal” or simply the “JT”, was required to deal with the conflicting jurisdiction…

2019 In Review, India, International Commercial Arbitration, Investment Arbitration

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Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on his recent visit to India in January 2020 remarked that the 21st century belongs to India. If that is true, it would also mean a flurry of disputes involving some Indian angle are inevitable and will keep the arbitration industry busy. Thus, even though 2019 may have drawn curtains over…