INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION 1/3LY
IN CONVERSATION WITH ALEC EMMERSON 25
IN CONVERS AT ION WI TH ALEC EMMERSON CLYDE & CO CONSULTANT IN DUBA I Susie Abdel-Nabi, Legal Director at Clyde & Co in conversation with Alec Emmerson, Consultant and independent arbitrator at Clyde & Co
T HE OR I G INS OF A RB I T R AT I ON A ND FA C T OR S WHI CH INF L UENCED CH A NGE SUS IE Alec, let’s start by talking about your legal career, and howyou became involved in international arbitration. ALEC I joined Clyde&Co almost 37 years ago, and before that I was an insolvency lawyer for 5 years for another firm in the City. When I joined Clyde’s, we were only doing shipping, international trade and insurance relatedwork, and themain forms of arbitrationwe didwere LondonMaritime Arbitrators Association (LMAA) and the Society of Maritime Arbitrators in New York (SMA). SUS IE Was arbitration a relatively novel formof dispute resolution at that time? ALEC Yes, there reallywasn’t that much other arbitration in the ‘70s. I didmy first International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) arbitration after I moved to Hong Kong in late 1983 to run the Firm’s office there. My first appointment as an arbitrator was also in Hong Kong – it was an interesting one because there were four parties, each of a different nationality and based in a different part of the world. It involved a chain of contracts. SUS IE Andwere you appointed as sole arbitrator?
ALEC Yes, somy very first experience as sole arbitrator was in an arbitration consolidated by agreement. Consolidation is now relatively commonplace in certain jurisdictions, but it was quite innovative at the time. It was complex, and I had to work out how to run it andmake an awardwhich survived appeal but, thankfully, when it went to appeal the judgment upheld the award. It did takeme awhile to write the award because it was really challenging – I wanted tomake it bomb proof and I’mglad it was! Since then, I’ve been involved in hundreds of arbitrations as party counsel. A number of years ago, I decided to sit more as an arbitrator andwas planning to retire fromClyde&Co, but we reached an agreement that I would split my time across both roles. SUS IE So you’ve seen a lot of changes in terms of how arbitration has developed and increased in popularity over the years? ALEC There’s certainly been a lot of change. Modern arbitration originated frommaritime and commodity trade arbitrations. These industries set up arbitration as a cost effective way of dealing with disputes; the idea being that those involvedwould be business peers and professionals immersed in the industry. For example, the idea of the LMAA was that it would be relatively cheap, cheerful and flexible; and I think it still is. It provides rules for expediting arbitrations and small cases, and it doesn’t have heavy-handed institutional touches. Then, with the advent of globalisation, international trade grew exponentially and companies are increasingly involved in business and transactions outside their home jurisdictions, often in places where there’s a lack of confidence in the local courts.
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