Lord Thomas: Rebalancing the relationship between the courts and arbitration Lord Thomas’s Bailii Lecture on 9 March 2016 has been the subject of much comment, and controversy, in London’s arbitration community. The speech is an eloquent and articulate analysis of how the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales considers arbitration has affected litigation. Concluding with the view that the Arbitration Act 1979 and 1996 went “too far” in supporting arbitration as a means of…
In a recent Iranian gas contract dispute, the High Court of England and Wales rejected an attempt to…
The court’s power to make appointments to an arbitral tribunal and the limitations it faces under the Arbitration…
In a recent PRC case (the “Taizhou Court Case”), the Taizhou Intermediate People’s Court (“Court”) refused enforcement of an ICC award on grounds of public policy because the court had previously held that the arbitration clause was invalid. This outcome could have been avoided if the parties had specified a suitable arbitral seat in the arbitration clause. We will discuss this case and provide recommendations for avoiding such outcomes. Relevance of the arbitral seat The…
This article was first published in the China Business Law Journal, July / August 2016, Volume 7 |…
In its report “Costs of arbitration and apportionment of costs under the SCC Rules” of February 2016[1], the…
This article is about two phenomena which currently impact the business of dispute resolution: The Vanishing Trial and the 30-70 %-Disease. What lies behind those two catch-words and why are both highly relevant for arbitration practitioners? Here is the proposed answer: The Vanishing Trial has been a long established phenomenon in the United States where the number of actually tried cases has been falling sharply for decades. Now, this trend is spotted in Germany as…
A tribunal in an investment arbitration pursuant to the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules between South American Silver Limited (“Claimant”)…
The new SIAC Rules 2016 (the “2016 Rules”) will now allow disputes to be consolidated or parties to…
“According to the fair play of the world, Let me have audience.” William Shakespeare Whilst Shakespeare’s words echo in English law and legal practice, what fair play actually looks like in our modern, complicated and interconnected world has been the subject of debate of late. Specifically, the topic of bias in arbitration has been put under the microscope by two noteworthy judgments of the English High Court and new International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) guidance…