Message from the Co-Chairs

LOOKING FORWARD TO BUENOS AIRES

Co-Chairs, Arbitration Committee


We hope that many of you will be attending the annual conference in Buenos Aires and that we will see you there.  Your Committee has a number of very interesting sessions planned.  The moderators have gathered many eminent speakers together who will share with us their experience and wisdom.  You can see full details in the Committee Conferences section of this webpage and on the Buenos Aires conference webpage.

In addition to the formal sessions, your Committee will have its dinner on the Wednesday evening at the Tattersall.  This site, located in one of the most beautiful parts of Buenos Aires (adjacent to the Palermo horse track and in front of the Polo grounds), will be a marvelous setting to meet up with friends and colleagues.  Prior to dinner, there will be a drinks reception on the terrace of the same venue.  In addition to a sumptuous meal, we are planning a surprise performance for this social occasion.

As we did previously in Singapore and Chicago, in Buenos Aires we will take the opportunity to speak to students at the University of Buenos Aires about arbitration.  More and more students are learning the theory of arbitration and are interested to hear what it is like in practice.  The Arbitration Committee also supports a scholarship that pays for a young lawyer to attend the Conference who could not otherwise afford to do so. 

In addition, we will hold a colloquium with local specialists in a joint event organized with the Argentine Chamber of Commerce and the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange focusing on dispute resolution issues.  Committee members are welcome to attend this joint event.  We extend very special thanks to Committee Senior Vice Chair Guido Tawil, whose practice is based in Buenos Aires, for all of the excellent arrangements which he has made for the Committee in his home city. 

We take this opportunity to recognize all of the Committee’s 22 Argentine members, whose names are listed after this message.

Planning for the next IBA International Arbitration Day, which will take place in Dubai on 16th February 2009, is already under way.  We are thrilled that this important annual Committee event is to take place in this exciting city and we will be providing more details in the coming months.  The conference theme will be Due Process in International Arbitration, a multi-faceted topic of deep interest to all practitioners in the field.  A Welcome Reception will be held on the evening of 15th February.

Two regional events in Asia are currently being planned by your Committee for the later part of this year and next year.  A colloquium for experienced lawyers and arbitrators on the subjects of evidence and ethics in international arbitration will take place on 24 November 2008 in Beijing, jointly sponsored with the Chinese arbitral body, CIETAC.  The colloquium will focus upon the IBA Rules on the Taking of Evidence in International Commercial Arbitration and IBA Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest in International Arbitration and how these Rules and Guidelines may be applied in the People’s Republic of China.  Committee members who are interested in participating in this conference should contact Committee Co-chair Sally Harpole (sallyharpole@sallyharpole.com).  A conference in New Delhi is being co-organized with the ICC Court of International Arbitration.  More details on both of these events will be available soon.

While speaking of regional conferences, we take this opportunity to congratulate former Committee Co-chair Claus von Wobeser and Committee officers Guido Tawil and Eduardo Zuleta, who formed the Organizing Committee of the very successful “Arbitration and the Judiciary” conference that took  place in Caracas last April.  We also thank IBA Vice President Fernando Pelaez-Pier for Co-chairing this event with Claus.  Katherine Gonzalez Arrocha represented the event co-sponsor, the ICC on the Organizing Committee. 

We are proud to report the successful completion of your Committee’s collaboration with UNCITRAL on its survey regarding the worldwide implementation of the New York Convention.  UNCITRAL has extended a gracious message of thanks in recognition of the contributors to the survey coordinated by your Committee, all of whose names and professional affiliations will be appear in the September 2008 issue of the Committee Newsletter. 

We would like to add our own deep appreciation for the generous and thoughtful contributions that were made by those who participated in the IBA’s coordinated portion of the survey.  The survey results will be published by UNCITRAL in the summer of 2008 and will be the subject of a report by UN Legal Officer Corinne Montineri at the IBA conference in Buenos Aires on Friday, 17 October 2008.

Your Committee continues to collaborate with UNCITRAL in respect of its Working Group on Arbitration, with Observer status.  That Working Group is reviewing the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules.  Sally Harpole and Audley Sheppard represented the Committee at a meeting of the Working Group last February and the Committee plans to continue its Observer status in the forthcoming Working Group meeting in September.  We will be sending a request for information and input from Committee members in preparation for the September meeting.

Over the first half of this year, the Committee Officers have been involved in a number of ongoing activities.  Matthias Scherer and his Subcommittee members have continued monitoring decisions relating to the IBA Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest.  Abby Cohen Smutny and the Investment Treaty Subcommittee have begun work to gather information on best practices for addressing the special problems associated with the production of evidence in investment treaty arbitration, including, in particular, problems faced by State parties.  The goal of the Subcommittee is to prepare a report on this important topic.

The Committee’s two task forces, the Task Force on Ethics for Attorneys in International Arbitration (headed by Judith Gill) and the Task Force on Arbitrators’ Terms in Ad Hoc Arbitration (headed by Kaj Hober), continue to gather information relevant to their respective focus topics.

The Subcommittee on the Rules of Evidence (headed by Richard Kreindler) is actively reviewing a substantial list of issues as it considers how the requirements under current international arbitration practices relate to the scope and contents of these important IBA Rules which will be celebrating their 10th anniversary next year.  We encourage Committee members to actively participate in the Open Forum regarding the Rules of Evidence that will take place at the Buenos Aires conference on Tuesday, 14 October 2008, as further described in this Newsletter.

We are delighted that Polish and Portuguese language versions of the IBA Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest were posted on the Committee website in the past few months.  We extend special thanks to those who carried out the work on the Polish translation.  These include Piotr Nowaczyk and Krzysztof Makosa of Salans, independent arbitrator Andrzej Kakolecki, and Lukasz Rozdeiczer of Clifford Chance.  We also enthusiastically thank those who worked on the Portuguese translation, including Gilberto Giusti of Pinheiro Neto, Luiz Gustavo A. S. Bichara of Bichara, Barata, Costa & Rocha Advogados, as well as coordinators Agostinho de Miranda and Tania Cascais of Miranda Correia Amendoeira & Associados.

An Arabic version of the IBA Conflicts Guidelines is currently being coordinated by Karim Hafez and a Russian version is being coordinated by Ilya Nikiforov.  In addition, a Chinese version of the IBA Rules on the Taking of Evidence is being created by a team of lawyers and experts based in Beijing.  We are extremely grateful for these efforts which will promote broader international access to the IBA Guidelines and Rules.

An exceptional collection of articles relating to the New York Convention appears in the May 2008 edition of IBA Dispute Resolution International, contributed by several of the eminent experts who spoke at the IBA International Arbitration Day in New York City last February.  We thank and congratulate Editor Andrew Foyle and the contributing authors for this outstanding edition and hope that all of you have benefited by receiving the journal, as members of the Arbitration Committee.

We also hope that you will find the articles and information in the upcoming issue of the Newsletter to be stimulating and useful.  We are grateful to all contributors for sharing news and developments from many parts of the world and thank Newsletter Editor, Lawrence Schaner and his team for the successful production of this Committee publication.

We look forward to seeing many of you in Buenos Aires this October and send our best wishes to all Committee members

Argentine Members of the IBA Arbitration Committee