Arbitration Team Coffee Break - September 2022

Events

Keep an eye on the outcome of the 2022 ICCA Congress

Edinburgh hosted, until 21 September 2021, the 2022 ICCA Congress. The title of the congress was “Arbitration’s Age of Enlightenment?”. Several conferences and debates were scheduled, where eminent practitioners addressed issues like the impact of AI on arbitration, the balance between confidentiality and transparency in international arbitration, and the potential reforms that the investment arbitration field might undergo in the future – for example, the innovation to ISDS procedures and the establishment of a broader permanent international investment court system.

Check out the program here.

News

The Justice Committee of the Chamber of Deputies approved the legislative decrees providing for the reform of the Italian Code of Civil Procedure

On 15 September 2022 the Chamber of Deputies Justice Committee approved the legislative decrees implementing the reform of the Italian Code of Civil Procedure. It is now necessary the final approval by the Government for the decrees to come into effect. However, it remains to be seen how the approval process will evolve, also in light of the elections for the new government scheduled on 24-25 September 2022.

Vienna International Arbitration Centre explanatory note on Investment Arbitration Rules

The Vienna International Arbitration Centre recently released an explanatory note on its Investment Arbitration Rules that entered into force on 1 July 2022. Find out more here.

Book review

Empirical Analysis of National Courts Vacatur and Enforcement of International Commercial Arbitration Awards – Journal of International Arbitration, Vol. 39, Issue 3, Wolters Kluwer (June 2022)

Roger P. Alford, Crina Baltag, Matthew E.K. Hall, Monique Sasson

The article looks at empirical research on all national court decisions on recognition, enforcement and setting aside of international commercial arbitration awards contained in the Kluwer database from 1 January 2010 to 1 June 2020. The authors analyse:

• the arguments of the defendants challenging the recognition and enforcement of the awards on the basis of Article V of the United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards; and
• the arguments raised by the claimants to challenge the award pursuant to Article 34 of the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration.

Interestingly, the authors conclude that State courts overwhelmingly enforce foreign arbitration awards, in 73% of the cases in the data set, without significant variations between State courts in various jurisdictions. Respectively, State courts overwhelmingly refuse to vacate arbitral awards (only 23% of cases are vacated), again without significant variations between courts in various jurisdictions.

Read the article here.

Good to know

The upcoming reform of the Italian Code of Civil Procedure provides for the regulation of translation iudicii, which is the transfer of a claim from arbitration proceedings to State court proceedings (and viceversa). Nicola Naccari has analysed this significant proposal for the reform of the Italian legal system, it can be assessed here.