Practical Law

As the readers of this blog will be aware, the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) is a judicial free zone in the heart of the emirate of Abu Dhabi. It administers its own system of common law courts, the ADGM courts, which are competent to hear arbitration-related actions brought before them in their capacity as curial or enforcement courts under the 2015 ADGM Arbitration Regulations. The ADGM Arbitration Regulations apply as the procedural law to arbitrations seated in the ADGM or to actions for enforcement of arbitral awards (whether domestic or foreign) before the ADGM courts. Being common law courts, the ADGM courts source their judiciary from common law jurisdictions, including in particular the UK. Continue reading →

The Abu Dhabi Global Market Arbitration Centre (ADGMAC) has recently launched its Arbitration Guidelines to the great acclaim of the local arbitration community. The Arbitration Guidelines are published in English and seek to provide best practice procedural guidance on the conduct of an arbitration process to arbitrators and parties alike. The Arbitration Guidelines are a soft-law instrument that does not produce any binding effect, neither on the parties nor on the arbitral tribunal, unless agreed otherwise. In this sense, the parties are free to contract into the provisions of the Guidelines wholesale or only in part. In a further alternative, the parties may agree to the application of the Guidelines or portions thereof by way of guidance to the tribunal only. In this sense, the overarching objective of the Guidelines is to “provide parties and tribunals with a set of innovative best practice procedures to assist in bringing greater certainty and efficiency to the arbitral process, while ensuring fairness, equality and due process” (see Introduction to the Guidelines). Continue reading →