INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION 1/3LY
SUS IE I agree that bringing barristers on boardmuch later down the procedural line is often not themost efficient or effective way of running a case. ALEC I think it’s something to do with themoney but it’s a false economy to have the case run only by people who are often less experienced than those doing the advocacy. Ideally, the personwho will actually be doing the advocacy should look at the strategy and be involved right at the beginning to review the statements of claimor defence. Although doing that incurs some extra costs early on, it potentially saves a huge amount later if it avoids going down unproductive avenues. Arbitrators often lament the lack of involvement of a senior advocate at an earlier stage but we can’t tell people their pleading is wrong, we can only encourage them to try to think about it a bit more. Having said all that, a change in advocate is sometimes unavoidable andwhoever is brought inmay have a different view of the case. I guess these challenges and dealing with difficult issues is why people get involved in arbitration as arbitrators.
But since then, regional institutions have been established – some quite successful, others less so – and those which have done well are in places with a lot of trade and business, geographic accessibility and developed legal infrastructures. I’m thinking of Hong Kong’s HKIAC and Singapore’s SIAC in particular. Also, if anyone had said 20 years ago that Dubai would be a significant place for arbitration, or that it would have more than one seat, people would have been quite doubtful. Now it offers both a civil law seat subject to UAE procedural lawand a common law seat subject to DIFC law, including its Arbitration Lawwhich closely follows the UNCITRALModel Law. Dubai’s success in the business of arbitration replicates the physical and commercial growth of the City and its success as a business hub. So, going forward, I think regional centres, and not just themost commonplace ones, but others like KCAB in Korea, for instance, will grow in popularity and become increasingly important. I don’t see there being a big change in the global three but I think the arbitration pie will increase in size for the reasons we discussed at the beginning. However, I think the ingredients for the slices in the pie will be different, with greater regional representation. Of course, we haven’t mentioned Chinawhich probably conductsmore arbitrations than anywhere else in the world but that’s a discussion for another time!
PRED I C T I ONS F OR T HE F U T URE
SUS IE We’ve talked about howarbitration has grown over the last 15 to 20 years and covered some of what the future impact may be. What other key changes and developments do you envisage andwhat are your predictions? ALEC We started off with a handful of international institutions, such as ICC, AAA/ICDR and LCIA, and those are still the institutions whose Rules seem to be very transportable and not linked to a specific seat.
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