From the Editors - Arbitration Committee, June 2021

Nania Owusu-Ankomah Sackey
Bentsi-Enchill Letsa & Ankomah, Accra
nowusu-ankomah@belonline.org

Michelangelo Cicogna
De Berti Jacchia Franchini Forlani, Milan
​​​​​​​m.cicogna@dejalex.com

We are once again delighted to bring you another edition of the Arbitration Committee’s newsletter, with articles covering a range of topics of interest to the arbitration community.

We begin with a report on a webinar organised by the Arbitration Committee’s Insolvency and Arbitration Group, discussing key features of the IBA Toolkit on Insolvency and Arbitration.

This Toolkit provides guidance to parties, counsel and arbitrators in situations where a party to arbitration proceedings is also subject to insolvency proceedings in one or more jurisdictions.

Next, we have five articles examining issues that are not jurisdiction-specific, but are of general interest to the arbitration community. We have an article announcing revisions to the PRIME Finance Arbitration Rules and another discussing current trends in ‘umbrella clause’ claims arising from breaches of contractual obligations. With the increasing reliance on video-conferencing in the conduct of arbitration proceedings, we have an article discussing the need for data privacy, cybersecurity and technology to be addressed as early and comprehensively as possible in Procedural Orders. Another article examines legal privilege issues and the last article in this section proposes a new system for the arbitration of disputes concerning human rights abuses at sea.

In our regional section, we have jurisdiction-specific articles from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. From Africa, we have an article discussing the enforcement of foreign arbitral award in Zimbabwe.

Our coverage of Asia features articles on topics pertaining to third-party funding in arbitrations, court interference in arbitration with respect to interim measures and urgent reliefs, non-arbitrable disputes, emergency arbitration and arbitration and insolvency, all with a focus on India.

From Europe, we offer articles discussing developments in ADR in Ukraine in the first year of COVID-19 and a Paris Court of Appeal decision highlighting the importance of compliance with anti-corruption rules in arbitration.

Finally, we share with our readers an article from the Latin America region examining the approach of the Constitutional Chamber of the Venezuelan Supreme Tribunal of Justice to arbitration and an article from the Middle East region discussing jurisdictional challenges under UAE’s arbitration law.

We are extremely grateful to our Editorial Board for their able contributions to this edition and for their valuable time. Our board was recently re-constituted and we extend a warm welcome to the new members of the board. Our gratitude also goes to all contributors to this edition and to the IBA production team for their continued support.

As usual, the new edition of the Arbitration Committee’s newsletter shall be issued in the autumn. Committee members who would like to contribute with an article are invited to contact us.