3rd Annual International Arbitration Summit
Kluwer Law International and Wolter Kluwer Hong organised the 3rd Annual International Arbitration Summit in Dubai on Wednesday, February 4, 2015 at the Park Hyatt. The one-day seminar saw the region’s experts congregate together to discuss the various aspects of Arbitration at a local, regional and international level. The day started off with a presentation on Emergency Arbitration by Derrick Dale QC of Fountain Court Chambers. The presentation explored the concept, the provisions and the limitations in-depth. It potentially enables parties to be less dependent upon the local court system or the court of the seat of the arbitration. The key limitations are that it can only be used against signatories to the arbitration agreement and there are enforcement issues as well. Dale focused on the importance of considering tactical questions such as whether it is really an ‘emergency’ with genuine ‘urgency’?, what are the limitations of the local court?, what is the effect of failure?, etc. This was immediately followed by an interesting presentation by Nassif BouMalhab and James Fox offering Top Arbitration Tips for In-house Counsel. Tops tips include – Consider the seat, ensure the presence of a clear arbitration clause, be express in the arbitration agreement if you want to be able to recover costs, always check the authority of the individual agreeing to the arbitration agreement, identify potential early witnesses and take preliminary statement, run a cost-benefit analysis before engaging in proceedings and so on. Nicholas Gould of Fenwick Elliot then talked about MENA construction and infrastructure disputes. Robert Karrar-Lewsley of Al Tamimi & Company talked about using arbitral legal theory to better understand the enforcement of awards in the MENA region while Hadef & Partners discussed settling of M&A disputes. Simon Cartwright of Holman Fenwick Willan discussed international trade disputes. The first grand panel on managing the arbitration process was moderated by Alec Emmerson of Clyde & Co. The second grand panel was moderated by Victor P. Leginsky and included panelists such as Christopher Grout from QICDRC, Prof. Tarak A Fouad A Rias of DIAC, S. Ravi Shankar among others gave updates on what’s happening in the region with regard to arbitration. Consolidaton of arbitrations under ICC Rules of arbitration was presented by Halil Ecrument Erdem of Erdem & Erdem Law Office. Other talks included arbitrating disputes with Korea Parties by Matthew J. Christensen of Bae, Kim & Lee and Mediation and the Mediation/Arbitration Interface by Paul Menzies of 12 Wentworth Selborne Chambers.
