Message from the President

Alexis Mourre

Once again, our yearly statistics show that the ICC International Court of Arbitration remains the most preferred arbitral institution in all regions.

The Court registered in 2020 another record in terms of new filings, with 946 new cases, including 17 cases in which the ICC Court was selected as appointing authority. Equally significant is the trend that this illustrates; 2020 marking the fourth consecutive year of a robust and regular growth of ICC Arbitration.1

The ICC Court now administers a record pending caseload of 1,833 cases. The cases registered in 2020 were seated in 113 cities and involved 2,507 parties from 145 different jurisdictions. These cases cover all sectors of industry, with the dominant presence of disputes relating to construction and engineering projects (20,9%), as well as energy (18%), including oil and gas (upstream, downstream and transportation) and electricity projects.

At the end of 2020, the ICC Court's pending caseload amounted to an aggregate amount in dispute of US$ 258 billion. More significantly, the average amount in dispute in ICC cases was US$ 145 million, confirming that the Court remains the premium institution for large, high value multi-party and multi-contract cases. The proportion of states and states entities in newly-registered cases (19,8%) is also a testament to the high quality of the Court's services, in particular its unique service of scrutiny of awards, allowing it to gain the trust of the parties where the interest of the public is at stake.

The geographical breadth of the parties involved in ICC cases reflects the unrivalled global footprint of the ICC Court. While the United States (232 parties) and Brazil (150 parties) are the two jurisdictions that count for the largest number of parties (representing 9.3% and 6% of all parties to ICC Arbitration), no other jurisdiction represents more than 5% of all parties involved in ICC cases. Importantly, the Court remains the only arbitral forum that is truly independent from any particular legal culture or tradition and that embraces the geographical diversity and global reality of contemporaneous international arbitration. It is noteworthy that, in 2020, ICC Awards were rendered in no fewer than 13 languages.

In April 2021, ICC celebrated the operational opening, in Abu Dhabi, of a fifth case management office of the Court Secretariat outside Paris, following presences established in New York, Sao Paolo, Hong Kong and Singapore. The Court will now administer cases in six cities spanning five continents, thereby ensuring that our teams are closer to the parties and able to react as promptly as possible to their needs. The opening of an ICC Abu Dhabi case management office is also testament to the increasing relevance of the UAE, and more broadly of the Gulf, within our caseload. With 90 parties in ICC Arbitrations in 2020, the UAE ranked as the 6th most prevalent nationality among ICC parties, with countries including Saudi Arabia (64 parties) and Qatar (47 parties) also seeing a rapidly growing number of parties to ICC cases. It bears noting that this development has come to fruition thanks to the support of Abu Dhabi Global Markets, to which the Court is grateful. This new office will allow the Court to better serve ICC parties in the entire region and marks a further milestone in the development of Abu Dhabi as a regional and global arbitration hub. Abu Dhabi has adopted one of the most modern arbitration statutes in the world, and now benefits from a physical presence of the world's most reputable arbitral institution. I have no doubt that this synergy will greatly contribute to the development of arbitration in the Gulf and, beyond, in the Middle East.

A sharp increase of the ICC Expedited Procedure Rules was also seen in 2020 with 97 new cases (75 cases resulting from the automatic application of the Expedited Procedure Rules and 22 resulting from the parties' agreement). While ICC is the best suited institution for large and complex cases, a very large share of its caseload comprises cases where the amount in dispute is of lower value: Close to 38% of cases registered in 2020 involved amounts in dispute not exceeding US$ 3 million. In order to address the needs of the parties in these cases, the ICC Court adopted in 2017, a specific procedure whereby a sole arbitrator is expected to render the award within six months from the case management conference at a reduced cost. To date, over 240 cases have been conducted under the Expedited Procedure Rules, and over 100 resulting awards have been scrutinised by the Court in the reduced time that is provided by paragraph 169 of the Court's Practice Note.2 This figure is set to continue increasing as the Expedited Procedure Rules operate on an opt-out basis. Remarkably, despite the reduced time of the procedure, the quality of these awards is equivalent to that of comparable awards made under the ICC standard procedure. This demonstrates that the Expedited Procedure Rules incentivize parties and arbitrators to cooperate in good faith in order to comply with the tribunal's obligation to render the award within six months.

In non-expedited cases, the average duration of ICC Arbitrations concluded in 2020 was 26 months, with a median duration of 22 months. This is comparable with the duration of cases in 2019, which is noteworthy given the inevitable delays that have been caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The proactive measures taken by the arbitral tribunals, as well as by the ICC Secretariat and the Court, including the issuance of a COVID-19 Guidance Note in April 2020,3 have therefore been successful in avoiding further delays due to the pandemic.

The ICC Court continues to closely monitor the time for the submission of draft awards by arbitral tribunals to the Court, which is two months (for sole arbitrators) and three months (for three-member tribunals) after the last substantive steps in the arbitration,4 and to reduce the arbitrators' fees in case of unjustified delays. In 2020, 48% of all final awards scrutinised by the Court were submitted with some delay. This figure, which includes de minimis delays and delays due to the pandemic, compares to a lower figure of 42% in 2019. A fee reduction was applied in 32% of these cases, fewer than in 2019 (44%), and can be explained by the significant number of cases having been affected by the pandemic. The number of final awards submitted with a delay of three to six months was 26 cases in 2020, compared to 33 cases in 2019. The ICC Court will continue to strictly monitor these delays and to apply fee reductions whenever delays are not de minimis or justified by the objective circumstances of the case.

Another highlight of 2020 includes the high number of requests for emergency arbitration relief (32 in 2020, compared to 23 in 2019), reflecting the increasing popularity of this procedure which allows parties to obtain, within 15 days, a decision by an Emergency Arbitrator whose appointment is generally made within 24 hours. This increased recourse to the ICC Emergency Arbitrator procedure contributes to the overall efficiency of an ICC Arbitration.

I cannot conclude this editorial without mentioning that the Court will begin the systematic publication of ICC Awards on 1 April of this year. It will do so in the context of a collaboration with an external provider, the details of which will be revealed on the launch date. I have no doubt that making non-confidential ICC Awards available to the public on an opt-out basis will not only contribute to greater transparency and better decision-making in ICC Arbitrations, but also strengthen the broader legitimacy of arbitration as a global system of justice. I am also confident that, with time, this measure will increasingly be accepted by the parties and emulated by other institutions.

1
The number of new cases (including those filed under the ICC Appointing Authority Rules) reached in previous years: 822 in 2017, 857 in 2018, and 869 in 2019. In 2016, the Court registered 979 filings. This number, however, included a series of 130 small cases as part of a US collective action.

2
Para. 169 of the ‘ICC Note to Parties and Arbitral Tribunals on the Conduct of Arbitration under the ICC Rules of Arbitration (1 Jan. 2021)’ provides: ‘If the Expedited Procedure Provisions apply, any draft award submitted to the Court will be scrutinised as soon as possible, and in any event no later than two to three weeks of receipt by the Secretariat’.

3
'ICC Guidance Note on Possible Measures Aimed at Mitigating the Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic (9 April 2020)'

4
See paras. 126(e) and 153 of the ‘ICC Note to Parties and Arbitral Tribunals on the Conduct of Arbitration under the ICC Rules of Arbitration (1 Jan. 2021)’.