Click to read more
The Importance of Specifying the Law Governing Arbitration Agreements to Prevent Conflicting Interpretations in Parallel Proceedings
“Specifying the choice of law in an arbitration agreement would enable the parties to be conscious of the legal system binding their arbitration and be aware of the validity and enforceability of their arbitral awards in different jurisdictions.”
The Power of the Purse: Why Promoting Gender Diversity is Key to the Future of International Arbitration
By: Mala Stauder; Junior Staffer A lack of diversity among appointed arbitrators has been a longstanding presence in the international arbitration community. Achieving gender diversity specifically proved to be a consistent challenge, yet its resolution remained a low priority for years. The international arbitration arena often wastes the most qualified talent when excluding women. In…
Shield against Accountability: How Russia Avoids Honoring Arbitration Awards While Being Tied Up with War and Sanctions
By: Cecilia Li; Junior Staffer In June 2015, Everest Estate LLC and several other Ukrainian companies (“Claimants”) commenced United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (“UNCITRAL”) arbitration proceedings with the Permanent Court of Arbitration (“PCA”) in The Hague against Russia pursuant to the 1998 Ukraine-Russia bilateral investment treaty (“Ukraine-Russia BIT”). The Claimants contended that Russia,…
What Would the End of McCarran-Ferguson Mean for Arbitration?
By: Dominic Charles; Junior Staffer With the passage of the Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act (CHIRA) of 2020, on January 13, 2021, Congress signaled that the world of insurance arbitration may soon change dramatically. Competitive Health Reform Act of 2020, PL 116-137, January 13, 2021, 134 Stat 5097; James W. Lowe McCarran-Ferguson Act Amended Repeal…
Spain’s Renewable Energy Disputes: Renewable Energy Needs Reliable Arbitration
By: Aloke Prabhu; Junior Staffer Spain’s decade-long war with foreign investors over the changes to its renewable energy policy in 2010 continues as the country seeks to annul tens of millions in awarded damages. The story of Spain’s disputes will likely discourage investors’ confidence in international investments in renewables for the foreseeable future. These cases…
California Gets Creative: How AB 51’s Future May Shape State Regulation of Arbitration
By: Scarlett Horn; Junior Staffer The United States (“U.S.”) Supreme Court has used cases such as Concepcion and Lamps Plus to establish its preference for enforcing arbitration clauses, including those that waive the right to class actions in consumer and employment contracts. Despite the pro-arbitration trend, California has remained undeterred in its resolve to avoid…
Frozen French Fries and the MPIA: The future of appeals at the WTO?
By: Colin McGinness; Junior Staffer In late December 2022, the World Trade Organization (WTO) decided on a seemingly routine case regarding the trade of frozen french fries between Colombia and the European Union (EU). Colombia accused several countries within the EU of ‘dumping’ frozen french fries and other frozen potato products into the Colombian market.…
COVID-19 and Virtual Hearings
COVID-19 has affected our lives in many different ways. Thousands of people lost their lives, many employees lost their jobs, and it is still unclear when and how we would return to our daily routines. Social distancing and health measures have led to the closure of economies in many countries. Different business fields are affected,…
The Complex World of International Arbitration and Eventual Enforcement
Recently, in a decision issued by the Court of Justice of the European Union, in the case of Slovak Republic v. Achmea, intra-EU bilateral investment treaties’ (“BIT”) arbitration clauses were declared to be in violation of governing European Union (“EU”) law and therefore illegal. The court stated “that the arbitration clause in the BIT [between Slovakia and the…
Amy Coney Barrett on Arbitration: Solidifying a Pro-Business SCOTUS
Sworn into the Supreme Court on October 27, 2020, the third Supreme Court nominee from President Donald Trump is poised to set a conservative supermajority on the highest court. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a judge from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, took the seat vacated by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had passed away on September…
Emergency Arbitration: The Unsung Hero of International Arbitration
Emergency arbitration. You know it, you…probably don’t think much about it, honestly. But the introduction of emergency arbitration is one of the most important recent changes in the field of international arbitration. Many parties agree to international arbitration because they would prefer to avoid local or national courts, some because bringing a case to court can be…
Inclusion of Emergency Arbitrations: A Step in the Right Direction?
The Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (“the Act”) provides for interim reliefs from both Courts and Arbitral tribunals. However, the latter has the authority to grant these reliefs only after its formation. Accordingly, both these procedures, under normal circumstances, have proved to be quite lengthy in nature. Thus, in order to provide urgent relief to the parties,…
Limitation Period for Enforcing Foreign Awards: Is the Confusion Settled?
On September 16, 2020, the Indian Supreme Court in Government of India v. Vedanta Ltd (‘Vedanta’) settled the ambiguity regarding the applicability of the limitation period for the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in India. In the year 2008, arbitral proceedings were initiated between Government of India (‘GOI’) and Vedanta Ltd., with Malaysia as the seat. Subsequently,…
Arbitration in Times of Restrained Social Relations Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic
The year 2020 will be remembered in history as the year in which humanity faced the COVID-19 pandemic. It seems that it will remain our day-to-day concern for some time with devastating effects on the economies of developed and developing countries all around the world. Another consequence of the pandemic is that many domestic judicial…
India-Brazil BIT: A Step in the Right Direction
On January 26, 2020, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was the chief guest during India’s 71st Republic Day Parade. Later that week a strategic partnership was formed between the countries as India signed a bilateral investment treaty (BIT) with Brazil to further develop relations between the two states on both a cultural and commercial level. Recently,…
New Decade, New Demographic? Increasing Diversity in International Arbitration
Middle Eastern and African countries are no strangers to arbitration. The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) published in its 2020 Caseload Statistics showing that the Middle East, North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa together account for 26% of all cases. In its 2017 Special Focus on Africa Report, ICSID reported that 22% of…
The Impact of COVID-19 on Arbitration
COVID-19 has already impacted almost every industry. Many in-person communications are moving online via teleconferencing and videos. The economic markets in nearly every country are being enormously affected, supply chains have been halted, and many employees can no longer go to work to manufacture products. These major changes to the world economy will no doubt…
The Potential Tribulations of the China International Commercial Court (CICC)
In 2013, China’s President, Xi Jinping, announced the “New Silk Road,” which would be the largest infrastructure development from East Asia to Europe. It was later coined as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The Belt and Road would consist of not only physical infrastructure but also fifty special economic zones. To date, roughly 60…
The Role of Arbitration in the US-China Trade War
Arbitration plays a background role in the US-China trade talks, but is it being used to its highest potential? The US-China trade war is the broad name given to a series of ongoing negotiations over mutual access to consumer markets and the onus of the trade deficit between The United States and China. After a…
The WTO’s Dispute Settlement Crisis
“The World Trade Organization is in crisis” is a statement that has practically become the new WTO motto. This particular global organization is comprised of 164 member states and was created on January 1, 1995. The provisional agreement and organization, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) preceded the creation of the WTO. While…
Click on a blog to read more.
An Overview of the EU-Singapore Free Trade Agreement
The European Union-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (EUSFTA), a bilaterally beneficial trade agreement, was finally implemented on November 20, 2019, after ten years of negotiations. Talks began in 2009, with the Good and Services negotiations and investment protection negotiations ending in 2012 and 2014, respectively. EUSFTA was signed in October 2018, and approved by the European…
Keep reading
Arbitration in the United Kingdom after Brexit: For Better or For Worse?
The United Kingdom has been working to officially remove itself from the European Union since 2017, in an ongoing political effort commonly known as “Brexit.” This separation arises from several goals, including granting the United Kingdom the ability to act more freely in its legal system and overall lawmaking. What impact will this have on…
Keep reading
AAA Ruling: Taking a Hard Line on Doping Infractions
Performance enhancing drugs have had a persistent place in sports for decades, and their utility has only increased as athletic achievements have been monetized. From Maradona and Armstrong to countless other athletes, long term health has taken a back seat to the glory of winning and the money that comes along with it. This storyline…
Keep reading
The Power of the FAA after Lamps Plus
This past spring 2019, the Supreme Court brought a new interpretation to the field of U.S. arbitration. A challenge for workers but a gift for employers, Lamps Plus v. Varela has more loosely applied the waiver of class action arbitration in the Federal Arbitration Act. The FAA was enacted in 1925 to relieve pressure on…
Keep readingLa Convención de la Haya sobre Ejecución de 2019 y el efecto en la selección del arbitraje internacional como método de resolución de conflictos
Editor’s Note: This piece is part of our on-going Spanish-publication series. English Language Summary: On 2 July 2019, the delegates of the 22nd Diplomatic Session of the Hague Conference on Private International Law signed the Final Act of, and thus adopted, the 2019 Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil or Commercial…
Keep reading
The FAIR Act: Bringing Consent Back to Arbitration
The House of Representatives passed the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal Act (“The FAIR Act”) on September 20, 2019, and the legislation has been introduced into the Senate. The FAIR Act’s purpose is to “prohibit pre-dispute arbitration agreements that force arbitration of future employment, consumer, antitrust, or civil rights disputes.” This opens up judicial system access…
Keep reading
Las Reglas De Praga y la Eficiencia de los Procedimientos
English Language Summary: Traditionally, international arbitration proceedings have been conducted under the influence of the common law and its adversarial system. Some factors identified as contributing to the increasing cost of arbitration proceedings include document production, fact witnesses and party-appointed experts. As a solution, a group of arbitration practitioners from civil law countries drafted The…
Keep reading
Arbitration Council of India: A Step Forward or Backward?
Significant changes have come this year to the Indian arbitration regime. A primary source of these changes can be seen through the insertion of Part 1A in the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (“ACA”) which prescribes for the establishment of the Arbitration Council of India (“ACI”). These amendments were based on the report of the…
Keep reading
The Achmea Judgment and its Repercussions
On January 15, 2019, a group of distinguished arbitrators, practitioners, and academics got together at American University Washington College of Law to discuss the most important decisions involving States in 2018. While the event consisted of two panels — one on disputes between States and the other on investor-State disputes — there was a decision…
Keep reading
Chinese Africa Joint Arbitration Center: A Solution to Trade Disputes between Africa and China
The increasing trade and investment cooperation between China and Africa, as well as the diversity of individual legal systems across African countries, create a growing need for neutral and cost-effective mechanisms for resolving commercial disputes between African and Chinese parties. These factors prompted the establishment of the Chinese Africa Joint Arbitration Center (CAJAC), which aims…
Keep reading
Incorporation of Arbitration Rules by Reference: Clear and Unmistakable Evidence of an Intention to Delegate the Authority to Arbitrate?
When questions about who should decide issues related to the existence, scope or validity of an arbitration agreement arise, the key rule is that “courts should not assume that the parties agreed to arbitrate arbitrability unless there is ‘clear and unmistakable’ evidence that they did so.” First Options of Chicago, Inc. v. Kaplan, 514 U.S.…
Keep reading
Expected Changes to ISDS Mechanisms under the USMCA
Upon its ratification by all parties, the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) will make substantial changes to the former North American Fair Trade Agreement’s (NAFTA) investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanisms found under Chapter 11. US-Canadian investments will experience the most dramatic changes due to the complete elimination of Chapter 11 ISDS mechanisms. There are big…
Keep reading
The Arbitration Brief 