In Alexander Brothers Ltd (Hong Kong SAR) v Alstom Transport SA and another, Cockerill J, sitting in the English Commercial Court, upheld an order granting enforcement of an ICC award. The respondent, Alstom, had argued unsuccessfully that enforcement of the award would be contrary to public policy, since there were “indicia” of corruption in the performance of the underlying contracts and any sums paid under the award might go to finance bribery. Continue reading
Successful appeals under section 69 of the Arbitration Act 1996 (AA 1996) are like buses; none come along for a while and then you get two in quick succession. Continue reading
The eighth edition of the East Africa International Arbitration Conference, which was originally due to take place in Zanzibar, has now been re-organised as an entirely virtual event taking place between 26 to 28 August 2020. Continue reading
The eighth edition of the East Africa International Arbitration Conference, which was originally due to take place in Zanzibar, has now been re-organised as an entirely virtual event taking place between 26 to 28 August 2020. Continue reading
The eighth edition of the East Africa International Arbitration Conference, which was originally due to take place in Zanzibar, has now been re-organised as an entirely virtual event taking place between 26 to 28 August 2020. Continue reading
A recent judgment handed down by Sir Geoffrey Vos, Chancellor of the High Court, considered the approach the court should take when a winding up petition is presented with regard to a debt that is not admitted and where the debt is subject to an arbitration agreement.
In our previous contribution, we examined the impact of insolvency proceedings on the validity of arbitration agreements designating Switzerland as the relevant seat. As we saw, such proceedings have no effect on the substantive validity of arbitration agreements. However, this does not necessarily mean that the insolvent party has the capacity to be a party to arbitration proceedings (although the two issues can be difficult to distinguish from one another). The notion of “capacity to arbitrate” (or subjective arbitrability) relates to the ability of a person or entity to enter into an arbitration agreement and act as a party to arbitration proceedings.
Recent developments under article 41(3) of the UAE Federal Arbitration Law (FAL), which entered into force on 16 June 2018 and replaced the former UAE Arbitration Chapter (the arbitration-specific provisions of the UAE Civil Procedures Code), provide some initial guidance on the signature of arbitral awards under the new law. Article 41(3) of FAL contains a mandatory signature requirement in the following simple terms: “the award shall be signed by the arbitrators”. No further guidance, other than this, can be found in the new law. Importantly, the simplicity of the wording echoes the analogical, albeit not identical, wording of corresponding article 212(5) of the former UAE Arbitration Chapter, which read, in equally mandatory terms, in relevant part as follows: “the award must in particular include the signatures of the arbitrators.”
On 11 August 2020, the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA) released its new rules, which will come into force on 1 October 2020.
The last update to the LCIA Rules took place in 2014. Like many of its competitor institutions, at that time, the LCIA introduced some new and innovative elements. In particular, the addition of the Annex of general guidelines for the parties’ legal representatives was market-leading, incorporating rules about conduct into arbitral rules themselves.
