Erosion of ‘Party Autonomy’ under the ‘Expedited Procedure’ Rule: An Institutional Arbitration perspective

– by Soumyajit Saha*

‘Expedited Procedure’ Rules of SIAC, LCIA, ICC

In an attempt to reduce the time for adjudication of arbitral disputes, leading arbitral institutions like Singapore International Arbitration Centre (“SIAC”), ICC Court of International Arbitration (“ICC”) and London Court of International Arbitration (“LCIA”) have revised their respective rules and included the concept of ‘Expedited Procedure’ in their rules of procedure. Under the ‘Expedited Procedure’, arbitral institutions are given the liberty to reduce the time period in order to constitute the arbitral tribunal and a duty is cast upon the tribunal to render the award within six months mandatorily. Pursuant to Rule 5.1 of Singapore International Arbitration Centre Rules, 2016 (“SIAC Rules”), one of the parties may apply for the arbitral proceedings to be conducted in accordance with the ‘Expedited Procedure’. Similarly, Article 30 and Appendix VI of ICC Court of International Arbitration Rules (“ICC Rules”) deals with ‘Expedited Procedure’ rule. A close reading of Article 30 and Article II, Appendix VI of ICC Rules, Rule 5 of SIAC Rules and Article 9.3 of LCIA Arbitration Rules, 2014 indicates that scope of party autonomy has been given a limited view.

ICSID tribunal finds Hungary in breach of expropriation clause in France–Hungary BIT

(This article was first published in ITN Quarterly, Issue 4, Volume 9, International Institute for Sustainable Development here)

Case Comment: UP and C.D. Holding Internationale v. Hungary, ICSID Case No. ARB/13/35

In an award dated October 9, 2018, an ICSID tribunal considered claims brought against Hungary by two French companies: UP (formerly known as Le Chèque Déjeuner, a cooperative company) and C.D. Holding Internationale, a wholly owned subsidiary of UP. The tribunal upheld the indirect expropriation claim under the France–Hungary BIT, awarding the claimants roughly EUR 23 million in compensation.

India-Bangladesh BIT Joint Interpretative Notes

Readers of this blog may know that India has been seeking to sign a Joint Interpretative Statement for Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) with Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brunei, China, Colombia, Finland, Iceland, Jordan, Kuwait, Laos, Latvia, Libya, Lithuania, Macedonia, Mexico, Mozambique, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Sudan, Syria, Trinidad and Tobago, and Turkey. I have covered this at length here.

It was reported in October 2017 that India and Bangladesh have signed Joint Interpretative Notes for the India-Bangladesh BIT (JIN). While considerable time has passed since then, I still want to discuss this development for the benefit of those who may have missed it.

A Critical Analysis of Third Party Funding (TPF) in Arbitration

By Digvijay Dam*

The author has separately dealt with two of the most controversial issues relating to TPF namely, “ordering security for costs in TPF” and “awarding successful claimants their costs of TPF”. However, as of now they are only of an academic deliberation and does not have a definite legal standing, due to conflicting precedents and multifarious views of eminent scholars/arbitrators.

Interview: João Ribeiro, Head, Regional Centre for Asia and the Pacific, United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL)

Mr. João Ribeiro serves as the Head of Regional Centre for Asia and the Pacific, United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), Incheon, Republic of Korea. He leads the Centre’s efforts in providing advice to Governments in Asia-Pacific region on the development of long-term strategies for the promotion of the harmonisation and of the modernisation of international trade law.

The views expressed herein are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations.

Voestalpine Schienen GmBH v. DMRC: Tending Towards International Standards of Impartiality in India

 

Arbitration in India in the past couple of years has seen some major changes. As the Arbitration Amendment and Conciliation (Amendment) Act, 2015 (hereinafter “the 2015 Amendment”) brought some drastic substantive and procedural changes in arbitral jurisprudence, the Indian judiciary, starting with BALCO v. Kaiser,   has also made an attempt to make the environment as conducive as possible for arbitration, putting it on an international pedestal with the aim of making India a preferred seat of arbitration. In the recent judgment of Voestalpine Schienen GmBH (VSG) v. Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Limited (DMRC), the Supreme Court clarified Section 12 of the Arbitration and Concilliation Act, 1996 (hereinafter “the Act”) for the purposes of impartiality and neutrality required for the appointment of an Arbitrator and settled the issue at an Apex stage, though future disputes with respect to Section 12 can be expected as the adjudication was not holistic in that regard.

The Technostars Shall Rise

Imagining the next generation of arbitrators…

By Garv Malhotra*

     I. Introduction

The development of arbitration as a formal system of dispute resolution has transfigured it into a highly evolved version of its primitive self a century back. Alongside the process, the players have also matured into influential stakeholders with defined roles and scope of flexibility. So how have the profiles of arbitrators changed over time?

Interview: Dr. Wolfgang Alschner, Assistant Professor, University of Ottawa

Dr. Wolfgang Alschner, Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa, is an empirical legal scholar specialized in international economic law and the computational analysis of law. He holds a PhD in International Law from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, a Master of Law from Stanford Law School, a Master in International Affairs from the Graduate Institute as well as an LLB from the University of London and a BA in International Relations from the University of Dresden, Germany. Prior to joining academia, he worked for UNCTAD’s Section on International Investment Agreements. He co-founded the investment treaty analytics portal www. mappinginvestmenttreaties.com and has published in leading peer-reviewed journals.

India’s Joint Interpretive Statement for BITs: An Attempt to Slay the Ghosts of the Past

By Sarthak Malhotra

(This article was originally published in ITN Quarterly, December 2016, International Institute for Sustainable Development here.)

India has bilateral investment treaties (BITs) or bilateral investment promotion agreements (BIPAs) in force with 72 countries.[1] The initial duration of these agreements with 25 countries has not yet expired.[2] The Government of India (Government) has recently begun negotiations with these countries proposing a Joint Interpretative Statement (Statement)[3] containing clarifications similar to the text of India’s new Model BIT.[4] We highlight below nine of the clarifications included in the Statement.

Transparency in International Commercial Arbitration: The Road Ahead

By Sarthak Malhotra 

In 1995, a former Secretary General of the ICC International Court of Arbitration, Stephen R. Bond, in an article, noted that the users of international commercial arbitration “almost invariably” mentioned the fact that the arbitral proceedings and the resulting award do not enter into the public domain as a feature which attracted parties to it.[1] Whether confidentiality is an essential feature of international arbitration cannot be stated with certainty, considering how the New York Convention and the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration do not expressly recognize it.