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The CIArb Australia News 2019
Lee Carroll Special Counsel, Corrs Chambers Westgarth View Profile
2019 International Arbitration Conference Building Bridges: Resolving Disputes through International Arbitration
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n 18 November 2019, arbitration practitioners from around the world convened at the Westin Brisbane to attend the 2019 International Arbitration Conference, organised by ACICA and CIArb Australia. The conference, which saw practitioners from 5 continents and 15 jurisdictions impart their knowledge and experience, was a wonderful success. The conference was opened by the Honourable Chief Justice Holmes. Her Honour was followed by the Honourable Justice Keane AC who gave the keynote address. His Honour advocated for “quality control” of the arbitration process to ensure its success. His Honour said that the quality of decision-making is (naturally) just as important to parties who have chosen arbitration as it is to those who have chosen litigation, and that competence and diligence should be the goal of every arbitrator. To take an approach, as arbitrator, which “gives a bit each way” is, his Honour said, inimical to the arbitration process. The first session of the day went around the globe, focusing on current trends in international arbitration in the Middle East and parts of Asia. Anne Hoffmann
said that arbitration is fully accepted by users in the Middle East; the hotspot of arbitration being the UAE and specifically, Dubai. Ms Hoffman then spoke to some of the features of the new UAE law. Meg Utterback spoke to developments in China including the 2019 Framework Plan which permits foreign arbitral institutions to register in mainland China. Sheila Ahuja said that a lack of reliability and consistency in the courts in Indonesia, India, Malaysia and Japan makes arbitration in those jurisdictions a strong choice. However, she identified hurdles in these countries. The Indonesian arbitration law does not adopt the Model Law. Recent amendments to India’s arbitration law are thought to be confused and India has only chosen to enforce arbitral awards from arbitrations with 59 (of the ~160) countries who are party to the New York Convention. Japan has some way to gain international reputation. And the Malaysian courts do not offer reliable or efficient judicial support for arbitration in that country. We also learned from the Honourable Justice Sofronoff, who chaired the session, that Myanmar is considering invoking an arbitration process and Professor Doug Jones explained that efforts
are being made in South Korea to expand the amount of international arbitration in that country, including by creating an English language list for international arbitration matters. The second session featured a conversation with Paula Hodges QC, led by Caroline Kenny QC. Ms Hodges spoke about a distinguishing feature of the LCIA Arbitration Rules (Articles 18.5 and 18.6) which ensures that counsel complies with certain ethical standards contained in the Annex to the LCIA Rules, and which gives tribunals the power to investigate alleged violations of the standards and impose certain sanctions in relation to any such violation. Ms Hodges explained that it was important, as an institution, to “regulate ourselves” and not be reliant on arbitrators to import the IBA’s ethical guidelines. In Session Three, we heard about arbitration in the energy and resources industry. The session was chaired by Jeremy QuanSing who revealed that a WA Arbitration Initiative which looked at the nature of arbitration activity with a WA connection in the 2017/2018 financial year, concluded that 75% of all reported arbitrations related to either the construction or oil & gas and mining industries. Georgia Quick spoke about arbitration in
