UK Law Commission Publishes Its Review of the Arbitration Act 1996: Final Report and Bill

On 6 September the Law Commission published its final report and recommendations on reforms to the Arbitration Act. The full report is available here.

Below follows a non-exhaustive summary of some of the key changes:

Statutory Rule on Governing Law of an Arbitration Agreement

English law has developed common law rules to determine which law governs an arbitration agreement. These rules were summarised by the UK Supreme Court in Enka Insaat ve Sanayi AS v OOO Insurance Company Chubb [2020] UKSC 38, and largely confirmed in Kabab-Ji SAL v Kout Food Group [2021] UKSC 48. Broadly speaking, absent an agreement to the contrary the choice of law of the main contract would also apply to the arbitration agreement.

The proposed new Section 6A would alter that framework for agreements post-dating the new Act becoming law. The new Section 6A still recognises the parties’ positive choice of governing law in the arbitration agreement as determinative. Failing such choice, however, the law of the seat will be applied as the governing law.

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The Development and Structure of the Court of Arbitration for Sport

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (“CAS”) is the world’s leading arbitration institution for sports-related disputes.

Headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, the CAS has further branches (described as “decentralised offices”) in Sydney and New York City which have been in operation since the mid-nineties. It also functions as an ad hoc tribunal during the Olympic Games.

According to statistics published by the CAS, a total of 8,865 cases were submitted to the CAS between 1986 and 2021. Rather than adopt a one-size-fits-all approach to dispute resolution procedure, the CAS offers a suite of different dispute resolution services to serve the sports industry (see further below).

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Future of International Energy Arbitration – Trends

Queen Mary University of London has undertaken a major International Arbitration Survey, focusing on the energy sector entitled “Future of International Energy Arbitration, Survey Report 2022”. This was led by Professor Loukas Mistelis FCArb[1] and his team. The Survey was based on feedback from over 900 respondents from a diverse range of jurisdictions, end users, leading practitioners, arbitrators and experts, as well as arbitral and academic institutions. Continue reading “Future of International Energy Arbitration – Trends”

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The opinions expressed on this blog are those of the author and are not to be construed as legal advice.

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