The Mediation Rules of the International Chamber of Commerce (the “ICC Mediation Rules” or the “Rules“) came into force on 1 January 2014 to replace the ICC’s 2001 Amicable Dispute Resolution Rules. The ICC International Center for ADR proposes services including expert appraisal and dispute boards, which can be used separately, successively or concurrently. The […]
Witness Statements in International Arbitration
It is common to use witness statements in international arbitration. The witness can typically be any person including officers, representatives or employees of the party for which he/she is to provide testimony.[1] The reasons to use witnesses in international arbitration are multiple: to reinforce evidence already presented in support of a party’s claim(s), to “fill” […]
Drafting an Arbitration Clause in 2021 – Recommendations
Many parties fail to realize that the wording of an arbitration clause is important for arbitration to function smoothly. In practice, one may observe, however, recurrent scenarios where arbitration clauses contain defective wording and, thus, are subject to unnecessary incidents and procedural debates. Such clauses are called “pathological clauses“. They are defined in Fouchard, Gaillard, […]
2018 Singapore Convention on Mediation
The United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation (“Singapore Convention (on Mediation)”) came into force on 12 September 2020. It creates a harmonized framework for cost-effective and prompt enforcement of international mediated settlement agreements, aiming to render mediation more efficient and attractive to commercial parties globally, as an alternative to international arbitration […]
Rome I, Rome II, Applicable Law and International Arbitration
The relevance of the Rome I and Rome II Regulations for determining the law applicable to the merits of an international arbitration is a hotly-debated issue. Within the European Union (“EU”), Regulation (EC) No. 593/2008 on the law applicable to contractual obligations (“Rome I”)[1] and Regulation (EC) No. 864/2007 on the law applicable to non-contractual […]