Regulate Funding in International Arbitration: Old Issue Still New

Third-party funding is becoming increasingly commonplace in international arbitration proceedings today. Although traditionally used to fund impecunious parties, modern third-party funding has shifted to financing parties who may have the necessary capital to pursue a dispute but wish to minimize cash flow disruptions.This prevalence of third-party funding in international arbitration is creating unique conflict of interest scenarios regarding an arbitrator’s independence and impartiality. However, many arbitral institutions and rules are not adapted to appropriately regulate the use of third-party funding to preserve the integrity of proceedings. For the most part, arbitral rules do not require a party to disclose the existence of a third-party funding agreement or the identity of the funder.This creates the risk of undisclosed or unknown conflicts arising after an arbitrator is appointed and severely disrupting the proceedings.This article examines how to best mitigate such risks by incorporating a disclosure regime within the current arbitral framework. This article contends that the mandatory disclosure of the existence of a funding arrangement and the identity of the funder would safeguard the requirements of independence and impartiality while allowing modern third-party funding to coexist with international arbitration.

100 Translation Errors in Institutional Arbitration Rules

This chapter evaluates the merits of Cairo as a venue for international arbitration proceedings. It discusses the history and development of arbitration in Egypt; the processes and rules involved as well as the role of courts in the conduct of arbitration proceedings; and rules for arbitral awards. It concludes that Cairo has become an attractive venue for international commercial arbitration since the promulgation of the Arbitration Act, inspired by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Model Law. The Egyptian courts are generally favorable to arbitration. They exercise minimal control over awards in actions for setting aside. The desirability of Cairo as a venue for international arbitration is further enhanced by the existence and activities of the Cairo Centre, which administers proceedings at very competitive rates compared with other arbitral institutions, and regularly updates its rules to reflect best international arbitration practices. The Centre also offers all the facilities required in connection with modern arbitration proceedings.

Singapore and Hong Kong have both recently reformed their international arbitration statutes to permit third-party funding of international arbitration, albeit subject to regulation. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom and Australia have operated as mature third-party litigation funding markets for many years with little regulation. This article considers the historical objections to third-party funding and compares the regulatory framework for third-party funding in England and Australia to Hong Kong and Singapore. It also examines relevant provisions in the rules of the major arbitral institutions in each of these jurisdictions. It concludes that Singapore and Hong Kong have proceeded cautiously, preferring greater regulation for third-party funding than England and Australia. This is a welcome development for an industry often thought to profit too generously at the expense of funded clients.

Third-party funding (TPF) has emerged as a transformative mechanism in international arbitration, yet its impact on arbitral efficiency in Southeast Asia remains underexplored. This empirical study surveys 100 legal practitioners across the region to assess how TPF influences key efficiency metrics including time to resolution, cost-effectiveness, predictability, settlement rates, and party satisfaction. Results indicate strong practitioner consensus that TPF enhances efficiency across all measured dimensions (mean scores: 3.55-3.67 on a 4-point scale), with particularly significant impacts on cost-effectiveness and settlement likelihood. However, respondents identify critical challenges including conflicts of interest, funder control concerns, and regulatory gaps. The study contributes original empirical evidence from an under-researched jurisdiction and provides region-specific policy recommendations for developing robust TPF frameworks. Findings suggest that while TPF demonstrably improves access to justice and procedural efficiency in Southeast Asian arbitration, realizing its full potential requires comprehensive regulatory reform emphasizing transparency, disclosure mandates, and ethical standards.

This chapter discusses the revised rules of the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA). The revisions fall into two basic groups: changes to correct earlier drafting inconsistencies (from 1981 to 1998), inaccurate reflections of actual LCIA practice, and excessively English legal language for an international arbitration; and new procedures decided by the LCIA. These revisions include the increased use of electronic communications by parties with the LCIA registry and LCIA tribunals, particularly for starting an LCIA arbitration; the procedure for an emergency arbitrator; changes to the default arbitral seat of an LCIA arbitration; the consolidation, etc., of different arbitrations for multi-party disputes; and a solution to the ‘Slovenia’ problem regarding potential conflicts between an arbitrator and a party’s legal representative.

2023 was a year of progress for international arbitration in China, as there was positive activity in the Ministry of Justice, in the Courts, and in the arbitral institutes, each paving the way toward making China a more favourable venue for international arbitration. There were also encouraging developments abroad as several foreign court decisions recognized awards issued in China under the rules of Chinese arbitration institutions, demonstrating increasing global acceptance of awards issued in China by Chinese institutions, such as the China International Economic & Trade Arbitration Commission.With major amendments proposed to modernize its arbitration law, updates of key arbitral institute rules to be aligned with international practices, and judicial and policy measures in aid of arbitration, China has taken concrete steps to strengthen itself as a more modern international arbitration jurisdiction.

Arbitration as a dispute resolution mechanism aims to advance access to justice in accordance with Goal 16 of the United Nations Substantiable Development Goals (SDGs). One key issue in arbitration law and practice is the role of third-party funders in fundraising for the arbitration or even litigation process. Third Party Funding (TPF) has grown as a practice of financial responsibility for litigation or arbitration by sponsors that are not parties to a dispute, but whose interest is return for their investment. Such an arrangement may cover major litigation or arbitration costs, as well as other miscellaneous costs. The practice contradicts well established legal principles such as privity of contract and/or complements party autonomy, but the enormous advantages it offers, such as faster access to justice and investment opportunities cannot be ignored. Whilst the concept has developed in advanced countries it is yet to take shape in developing nations like Nigeria. The methodology deployed is doctrinal with primary and secondary sources being the content of Statutes, Bills and Case law. Online sources were also relied upon for secondary sources. The study found that TPF will assist in higher fundraising for litigation and arbitration, that it applies mainly to claimants and will increase access to justice. It is recommended that funds be made available to Defendants too and that developing countries should embrace the practice.

Portfolio finance has, in a relatively short period of time, emerged as the leading form of funding in international commercial and investment arbitrations around the world. That said, owing to the confidentiality of international arbitration generally – and third-party funding and portfolio financing arrangements specifically – there are no publicly available statistics evidencing this meteoric rise. Equally, until now there has been little, if any, scholarship on the use of portfolio finance in practice by claimants, counsel, and funders. In this article, an attempt is made to remedy that paucity of scholarship, in three ways: (i) assessing the current state of the market on portfolio finance in international arbitration; (ii) describing portfolio financing in practice and explaining why it has become increasingly attractive to claimants and counsel; and (iii) examining the impact, if any, of proposed arbitration rule amendments and developments in treaty practice on the use of portfolio finance.

This article tackles the emergence and progressive acceptance of third-party funding (TPF) in arbitration across Arab countries within the MENA region, where civil law systems and Islamic Shariaa principles converge. While legislative regulation of TPF remains largely absent, notable arbitral institutions – including the Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration (CRCICA) in Egypt, the Dubai International Arbitration Centre (DIAC) and the Abu Dhabi International Arbitration Centre (arbitrateAD) in the United Arab Emirates, the Saudi Center for Commercial Arbitration (SCCA) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the Qatar International Center for Conciliation and Arbitration (QICCA) in Qatar – have revised their arbitration rules to include express provisions governing TPF. These developments reflect a regional trend towards procedural transparency, primarily through the disclosure of funding arrangements and funders’ identities, in order to avoid conflicts of interest and preserve the arbitrators’ impartiality and independence. Furthermore, the article sheds light on the nature of TPF agreements and assesses their compatibility with the principles of Islamic Shariaa, concluding that when properly structured, TPF agreements align with the overarching Islamic Shariaa principles of justice and fairness. Accordingly, the reliance on TPF in the MENA region is likely to play an increasingly significant role in the region’s dispute resolution landscape, and particularly in arbitration.

Empirical Findings on International Arbitration: An Overview

The Belt and Road created in 2013, became in English an “initiative” (BRI) in 2017. This article concerns Chinese Courts; there are few arbitral institutions in China. This has a great significance and demonstrates the opening-up trend for foreign legal service in the People’s Republic of China. This paper aims at understanding the importance of arbitration, what is the main objective of arbitration? The research methodology uses surveys, interviews and observation. China, a global country along the BRI, has great international legal arbitrators and has, it seems, to think seriously to develop arbitration to be internationally credible.

Witness testimony has become pervasive in the world of international arbitration, where it is expected that one will encounter language barriers, especially in cases where the linguistic skills of arbitral tribunals, legal counsel and/or witnesses are not compatible with the applicable language of the proceedings. In such instances, translation of written testimonies and reports, as well as the live interpretation of oral testimonies, become indispensable. However, the relative importance of such translation and interpretation is often overlooked or underestimated. Practice has revealed that in most cases the interests of the parties, the witnesses and the translators/interpreters are not necessarily aligned. For this reason, the paper intends to provide a critical analysis of certain practical, legal and lingo-cultural challenges facing translators/interpreters of witness testimony in international arbitration. An attempt will be made to address the following questions: who can translate and interpret witness testimony, who appoints the translators and interpreters of witness testimony, what are their qualifications and skills, what is the role of legal counsels with regard to witness testimony interpretation and translation, and is it crucial, in translating witness testimony, to consider and assess the translator’s/interpreter’s potential conflict of interest? In addressing the above, this paper will draw upon real-life cases involving bilingual international arbitral proceedings in English and Arabic.

This chapter focuses on the impact of sanctions on international arbitration which can be provided for in contracts which have been targeted by the sanctions, or in international investment agreements. There are indeed many aspects to this interaction, both legal and practical. On a general jurisprudential level, economic sanctions highlight various complexities within the arbitral process, viz. the operation and interaction of various laws and legal systems (the lex arbitri and law governing the arbitration agreement, the substantive law of the contract and the law of the enforcing jurisdiction as well as overriding international law principles). These various laws may be in play throughout the process, to be applied not only by tribunals themselves during the course of proceedings, but also potentially by courts deciding or reviewing questions of jurisdiction and public policy (whether at the seat or in the enforcing jurisdiction). On a more practical level the increase in relatively recent sanctions regimes has led to growing discussion about the implications of these regimes for arbitrators and arbitral institutions.This chapter will discuss these two questions in two separate sections. The first section discusses the arbitrability of the dispute, the impact of sanctions on the jurisdiction of an arbitral tribunal, and the impact of sanctions on the enforcement of the arbitral award. The second section tackles the influence of sanctions on the conduct of arbitration proceedings. This chapter covers international arbitration in general, making no distinction between international commercial arbitration and international investment arbitration, the questions arising in both areas being of a similar nature, unless otherwise mentioned. This chapter however does not engage with the question of the effect of sanctions on the performance of contractual or other obligations which may have been affected by the imposed sanctions which is discussed elsewhere in this volume. Similarly, this chapter does not engage with the conformity of sanctions with international economic and trade law, notably in the context of the World Trade Organization, which is covered by Andrew Mitchell in his chapter in this volume.

The subject of this study is the impact of the sanctions policy imposed against the Russian Federation in 2022 on international commercial arbitration. For that purpose, we analyse the restrictive measures that have had a major impact on dispute resolution in international commercial arbitration involving Russian and sub-sanctioned persons. An important part of the study is an analysis of current practice in this area and the difficulties arising in order to develop recommendations and possible means of overcoming them for the continuation of international arbitration in Russia and access to justice for sanctioned persons. Over recent years, international commercial arbitration has become one of the most common means of dispute resolution, not only abroad, but also in the Russian Federation. However, the international nature of arbitration makes it highly sensitive to sanctions. Since the implementation of anti-Russian sanctions, especially in 2022, it became evident that the field of international commercial arbitration faces inevitable difficulties in terms of cooperation with foreign jurisdictions and its operation in general. The impact of restrictive measures on international commercial relations cannot be overestimated, with the number of cross-border disputes only increasing, which makes international commercial arbitration more than relevant and requires new solutions to overcome existing challenges. The research leads to a number of conclusions: the 2022 sanctions have certainly affected the world of arbitration but have not put an end to arbitration institutions in general; they have led to a global reorientation towards Asian arbitral institutions and a strengthening of Russia's position as a place for arbitration; parties to arbitration proceedings are finding new and successful solutions to the restrictive measures; many foreign jurisdictions are slowly softening their policy towards arbitration.