In a little heralded development, the Government of India passed the Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Ordinance 2020 (the “Ordinance”) on 4 November 2020 to amend the Indian Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1996 (the “Act”) with immediate effect. The Ordinance introduces provisions to stay the enforcement of arbitral awards tainted by fraud, and deletes certain provisions … Read more

Herbert Smith Freehills is joining with the London Chamber of Arbitration and Mediation to conduct a new Mediation in Arbitration Survey. The survey should provide a valuable opportunity to ascertain the current take-up of mediation in international arbitration. The survey also aims to identify the stages of the dispute at which such mediations most commonly … Read more

This year marks the tenth edition of the Herbert Smith Freehills – SMU Asian Arbitration Lecture Series. We are delighted that Ms Loretta Malintoppi from 39 Essex Chambers will deliver the lecture on Thursday 22 October, on the topic “Don’t Shoot the Sheriff: The Threat of Legal Claims Against Arbitrators and Arbitral Institutions”. The Herbert Smith Freehills-SMU Asian Arbitration … Read more

Tomorrow marks an important day for dispute resolution users as the Singapore Mediation Convention comes into force, just over a year after its signing ceremony on 7 August 2019. The UNCITRAL Working Group II’s aim to implement an international regime for the enforcement of mediated settlements broadly akin to the 1958 New York Convention for … Read more

In OCBC Wing Hang Bank Ltd v Kai Sen Shipping Co Ltd [2020] HKCFI 375, the Hong Kong Court of First Instance (Court) dismissed a summons for a stay of proceedings in favour of  arbitration due to the impermissibility of incorporating arbitration agreements from a charterparty. The Court declined to stay its proceedings despite the … Read more

On 17 January 2020, by its ruling numbered (2019) Jing 04 Min Te 135 (Ruling), the Beijing Fourth Intermediate People’s Court (Beijing Court) upheld the validity of an arbitration agreement in a prospectus for a short-term financing bond which also contains conflicting litigation clauses. In the Ruling, the Beijing Court followed the opinion of the … Read more

Authors: Emma Schaafsma and Kemi Wood Introduction  In 2017, the Tanzanian government introduced a raft of legislative reforms to the natural resources sector. Through the reforms the new government looked to ensure that investor disputes were resolved locally and that the Tanzanian government would not be subjected to international arbitrations. The new government showed a particular hostility towards … Read more

Yesterday, on 25 February 2020, Singapore and Fiji became the first two countries to deposit at the United Nations Headquarters their instruments of ratification of the Singapore Convention, more formally known as the United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation. Singapore and Fiji have taken an important step towards bringing the Singapore Convention … Read more