New regional director for Asia

Kim Kit Ow has been appointed as the new Asian regional director for the ICC International Court of Arbitration and ICC Dispute Resolution Services.

Ms Ow is a qualified lawyer with a background in international commercial arbitration, international investment law, commercial and civil litigation, public and private international law, as well as banking, finance and wealth management. She holds an LLB (Hons) degree from the National University of Singapore and has been called to the Singapore Bar.

Ms Ow brings to ICC her experience as both a practising lawyer and an in-house counsel. She began her career in the dispute resolution department of a leading Singapore law firm and later moved into the banking and finance sector, where she worked for both private and public bodies. Most recently, she was in charge of a unit dealing with dispute resolution and regulatory matters in an international bank, based in Singapore.

Working out of Singapore, Ms Ow will be responsible for promoting ICC's dispute resolution services throughout South and East Asia and Australasia. Much of her time will be spent organizing and coordinating educational and training events in the region and answering enquiries from local users seeking information about ICC arbitration, ADR, expertise, dispute boards and DOCDEX. Ms Ow is fluent in both English and Chinese.

Ms Ow can be contacted through the Court's newly opened regional office in Maxwell Chambers, Singapore:

32 Maxwell Road #02-11

Maxwell Chambers

Singapore 069511

Tel.: +65 6225 9081/82

Fax: +65 6225 9083

Email: okk@iccasia.com.sg

ICC reports growing mediation activity

As ICC prepared for its 5th International Commercial Mediation Competition, its ADR Secretariat announced a doubling in the number of cases filed under the ICC Amicable Dispute Resolution (ADR) Rules during the past twelve months.

Launched in 2001, these Rules allow for the settlement of disputes by various consensual means including mediation, which is the method preferred by most parties. The advantages of mediation include its speed, flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and the opportunity it offers parties to keep control and be actively involved in the search for practical and commercially viable solutions. The parties' choice of mediation is determined not so much by the nature of the disputes (which are as varied in mediation as they are in arbitration), but by its distinctive approach and bottom-line considerations. A mediation can cost as little as US$ 15,000 and be over in a matter of three months.

Like arbitrators, mediators are key to the proceedings and ICC lays great emphasis on the care with which they are selected. Its aim is always to ensure that the mediator matches the specific requirements of both the parties and their dispute, in terms of nationality, language skills, legal and cultural background, expertise, and experience in international [Page8:] business mediation. Mediators are selected not from a closed list but on the basis of individual searches conducted for each case with the help of ICC national committees and the Secretariat's own network.

An important part of ICC's growing mediation activity is the ICC International Commercial Mediation Competition. Now in its fifth year, this five-day event provides perfect schooling for the practitioners of tomorrow, offering them an opportunity to test and develop their problem-solving skills in an international environment. The 2010 competition sees teams from 44 universities and law schools around the world challenging each other for the prestigious trophy, under the expert eyes of some eighty professionals who act as volunteer mediators and judges. Details about the competition can be found at <www.iccadr.org>.

For those already in practice, ICC also offers periodic conferences and seminars designed to raise awareness of mediation amongst legal and business professionals and share best practices for optimizing the management of business disputes. The next such event, entitled Managing Risks and Getting Results: How to Use Mediation Effectively in International Business Disputes, takes place at ICC in Paris on 11 February 2010. Co-organized by ICC and the American Bar Association (ABA), it will feature representatives from international corporations and offer a business perspective on the advantages of mediation. More details can be found at <www.iccadr.org>.

Introduction of new Statement of Acceptance, Availability and Independence for arbitrators

On 17 August 2009, the International Court of Arbitration issued a new Statement of Acceptance, Availability and Independence for arbitrators being nominated by parties or proposed by ICC national committees to serve on arbitral tribunals under the ICC Rules of Arbitration.

The principal change introduced in this document was the inclusion of a separate section on availability rather than having the availability requirement linked to the acceptance to serve in the case. In this new section on availability arbitrators are invited to confirm their ability to devote the necessary time to the arbitration.

This addition is intended to encourage arbitrators to reflect carefully on their availability before being appointed or confirmed by the ICC Court and to encourage greater transparency towards the parties involved in the arbitration regarding their availability.

Experience has shown that an unrealistic assessment by an arbitrator of the time he or she can give to a case may cause delays, require the Court to grant repeated extensions of the time limits set pursuant to the ICC Rules of Arbitration, and frustrate the parties' need for prompt and well-considered decisions. Such delays are both inconvenient and costly. ICC, as the world's leading international arbitral institution, considered it had a responsibility to address this problem.

To allow an assessment of an arbitrator's workload, the new Statement of Acceptance, Availability and Independence requests certain limited information on the arbitrator's professional commitments. However, arbitrators are encouraged to provide more information to the extent that clarification may be necessary and helpful for the Court and the parties to make informed decisions. For example, an arbitrator may indicate the amount of time that he or she has available in the course of the coming months or information regarding the status of any pending cases.However, arbitrators should not disclose information that is confidential.[Page9:]

In order to respond to certain concerns raised after the initial publication of the form, a revised version was issued with effect from January 2010. Amendments to the form make explicit that any information provided by an arbitrator must be treated confidentially and will be stored in compliance with the provisions of French data protection law. It will be used only for the purpose of the case for which the prospective arbitrator is nominated.

The Court attaches great importance to observance by ICC tribunals of the time limits in the ICC Rules of Arbitration. Arbitrators appointed or confirmed under the Rules must be capable of working within these limits throughout the entire duration of the case. The vast majority of arbitrators do not need to be reminded of the need to be realistic when assessing the time they can give to a case. Regrettably, however, some do and the Court anticipates that the fact that the point has been highlighted in the new ICC Statement of Acceptance, Availability and Independence will reduce the risk of unreasonable delays in the conduct of ICC arbitrations.

Whilst the new Statement of Acceptance, Availability and Independence may also give rise to objections to the confirmation or appointment of arbitrators or to challenges based on the disclosures provided, those that are frivolous or made for tactical reasons will not be accepted by the Court. Genuine concerns about availability may cause the Court to enquire further of an arbitrator or not to confirm or appoint that person. Equally, however, the Court will endeavor to respect the parties' choices and those of any co-arbitrators on whom the power to nominate a chairman may have been conferred.

The Court will monitor the use of the new form over the course of the next six to twelve months and may make such changes as become reasonably apparent and necessary based on its experience and any comments received from arbitrators, counsel and the parties who use ICC arbitration.

The new form is reproduced on the following pages. [Page10:]

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