LISBON ARBITRATION

Technology advances of the last decade have irreversibly changed the way we communicate, and international arbitration is no exception to this new reality. Although some of the possibilities allowed by the use of new technologies, such as virtual hearing rooms and the use of highly hyperlinked submissions, may still not be standard at this point – and, most importantly, may not suit or be cost-effective in all kinds of arbitral procedures –, it is already common practice between arb...

The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) has recently revised its Note to Parties and Arbitral Tribunals on the Conduct of the Arbitration under the ICC Rules of Arbitration (“Note”). The Note provides the users of ICC arbitration (including parties, arbitral tribunals and administrative secretaries) with useful, practical guidance on the conduct of arbitrations under the ICC Rules of Arbitration (last amended in 2017). Importantly, the new version of the Note applies to “all ICC a...

1.   Technological Wave Around 20 years ago, Richard Susskind predicted that lawyers would regularly use e-mails to communicate with clients [1] . Time proved him right. Thereafter, 10 years ago, the same author predicted that “the foundations of dispute resolution [would] be rocked by a combination of electronic disclosure, e-filing in the courts” [2] . Once again, time proved him right. He now predicts that new technologies are one of the main drivers of a big transformation in the lega...

According to most laws and regulations regarding arbitration, the parties may freely agree on the rules governing the proceedings and, in the absence of such agreement, the arbitral tribunal defines and conducts the arbitral proceedings under the rules that it considers appropriate [1] . The arbitral tribunal has, typically, broad discretion and room for flexibility when conducting the arbitral proceedings, within certain limits: firstly, the boundaries arising from the agreement of the...

After three years of debate, on 26 June 2018, in its 51 st annual session held in New York, Uncitral approved final drafts for a Convention on the Enforcement of Mediation Settlement Agreements (hereinafter “the Singapore Mediation Convention”) and for a Model Law on International Commercial Mediation and International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation (hereinafter “the Mediation Model Law”). These drafts will be submitted to the Commission for adoption by the end of 2018 and onl...