Since its creation in 1990, the ICC International Court of Arbitration Bulletin has published an annual digest of statistical information relating to the dispute resolution services offered by ICC. These reports provide a record of extraordinary growth, not only in terms of the numbers of cases but also their scope. In 2002, ICC continued to provide the international business community with a range of essential services including arbitration, amicable dispute resolution and expertise.

ICC arbitration

ICC arbitration is administered by the ICC International Court of Arbitration and its Secretariat, whose current composition is presented in the following chapter. The Secretariat deals with day-to-day case management, while the Court, which meets weekly in committee form and once a month for a plenary session, is responsible for key aspects of procedure including the appointment, confirmation and challenge of arbitrators, the fixing of arbitrators' fees and the scrutiny of awards. Twelve plenary and 47 committee sessions were held in 2002.

The ICC Court's caseload reached an unprecedentedly high level in 2002. At the end of the year, following the filing of 593 new requests during the preceding twelve months, the number of cases pending stood at 1,135. These cases involved all sectors of the economy. In addition to those where arbitration already has a strong tradition, such as construction and engineering, energy, industrial manufacturing and general trade and distribution, 2002 saw increases in the number of cases relating to information technology, finance and insurance, the media and publishing, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, agriculture, environmental protection and transportation.

Parties to ICC arbitration

The 593 new cases filed with the ICC Court in 2002 involved a total of 1,622 parties. Almost a third (185) of these cases involved more than two parties, showing that as arbitration grows so does its complexity. 51% of the multi-party cases had more than one respondent, 31% more than one claimant and the remaining 18% had both more than one respondent and more than one claimant. The increase in the number of multi-party arbitrations is a relatively recent phenomenon: between 1991 and 1998 multi-party cases represented around one fifth of the annual number of cases filed. This proportion rose to a quarter in 1999 and has been rising steadily since.

Geographical origins of parties

The parties in the cases registered in 2002 were of 126 different nationalities. This is more than ever before and includes two newcomers: Azerbaijan and the Palestinian National Authority.

The number of African nationalities rose to 29, as compared with an average of 22 over the previous four years.

In North America, the number of Canadian parties almost doubled as compared with 2001. The number of US parties rose to just over 200, confirming the USA's prominence amongst ICC arbitration users.

Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Panama and Venezuela continue to account for the great majority of Latin American parties. Argentina's importance rose in 2002. It alone accounted for 23% of all Latin American parties, second to Mexico at 26%.

Korea was for the first time the most highly represented country in South East Asia. The number of Philippine and Thai parties rose after a fall in 2001. In Central and West Asia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Lebanon account for over half of the parties.

Amongst the most notable changes in Europe was the continuing rise in the number of Turkish parties, which has increased more than fivefold in two years.

[Page9:]

[Page10:]

Public and semi-public entities

9.4% of cases registered in 2002 involved at least one party identified in the arbitration request as a public or semi-public entity. Approximately half of these parties were states. The table below shows the breakdown of these public and semi-public parties region-by-region.

The arbitral tribunal

A total of 964 arbitrators were appointed or confirmed in 2002. 778 of these arbitrators served as part of a three-member tribunal and 186 as sole arbitrators. [Page11:]

Designation of arbitrators

The ICC Rules of Arbitration allow parties to nominate persons of their choice as arbitrators. Such nominations are subject to confirmation by the ICC International Court of Arbitration or its Secretary General. Of the arbitrators nominated by parties and co-arbitrators in 2002, 698 were confirmed and 17 not confirmed. Arbitrators may also be appointed by the ICC Court, in which case a proposal will normally be sought from an appropriate ICC national committee.

In 2002, 572 arbitrators were nominated by the parties and 126 by co-arbitrators (in the case of three-member tribunals) and subsequently confirmed by the Secretary General or the Court. Of the remaining 266 arbitrators appointed by the ICC Court, 23 were appointed directly and 243 upon a proposal from an ICC national committee. Proposals were taken from 36 national committees. These figures may be further broken down according to the arbitrator's status:

Sole arbitrators: 40 sole arbitrators (21.5%) were nominated by parties and subsequently confirmed by the Secretary General or the Court; 145 (78%) were appointed upon a proposal from an ICC national committee; and one (0.5%) was appointed directly by the Court.

Co-arbitrators: 510 arbitrators (95.7%) were nominated by parties and subsequently confirmed by the Secretary General or the Court; nine (1.7%) were appointed upon a proposal from an ICC national committee; and 14 (2.6%) were appointed directly by the Court.

Chairmen: 22 chairmen (9%) were nominated by the parties and subsequently confirmed by the Secretary General or the Court; 126 (51.4%) were nominated by co-arbitrators and then similarly confirmed by the Secretary General or the Court; 89 (36.3%) were appointed upon a proposal from an ICC national committee; and eight (3.3%) were appointed directly by the Court.

Challenge and replacement of arbitrators

Article 11 of the ICC Rules of Arbitration allows parties to challenge arbitrators, whether for an alleged lack of independence or otherwise, and empowers the ICC Court to decide on the admissibility and merits of such challenges. In 2002, 17 challenges were introduced, of which five were accepted by the Court.

In 2002, the ICC Court accepted resignations from 15 arbitrators and decided to replace five arbitrators. [Page12:]

Geographical origins of arbitrators

The 964 arbitrators who took up their duties in 2002 came from 62 different countries. Similar trends are found here as were observed with regard to the geographical origins of the parties: the number of arbitrators from Turkey has soared; there was also a large rise in the number from Argentina, although it still remained second to Mexico in Latin America; and arbitrators from more African countries took up office in 2002. Other notable increases include the number of arbitrators from the USA (up by 40% as compared with 2001) and the number from the Czech Republic, which reached double figures. For the first time in the history of ICC Court statistics arbitrators were confirmed or appointed from Cape Verde and Guatemala.

[Page13:]

Place of arbitration

The place of arbitration was chosen by the parties in 86% of cases submitted to the ICC Court in 2002. In 75% of cases the choice was made in the arbitration clause and in 11% of cases by subsequent agreement between the parties. In the remaining 14% of cases the place of arbitration was fixed by the Court.

The places of arbitration chosen or fixed in 2002 were situated in 43 different countries. In Africa, places of arbitration were located in four different countries, including three in sub-Saharan Africa. Ghana appeared for the first time in the history of ICC Court statistics. Singapore maintained its lead in Asia. In Latin America, Argentina was the country most frequently selected, closely followed by Mexico. In the USA, the place of arbitration was located in 15 different states, most frequently in New York (22 cases), followed by California (8 cases), Texas and Florida (5 cases each). Amongst Central and East European countries, Turkey again occupies a leading position, the Czech Republic and Greece were also selected more frequently than previously, and Albania appeared for the first time. As for North and West Europe, four cities stand out for the frequency with which they were selected: Paris in France (in all of the 88 cases mentioned below), Geneva (55 cases) and Zurich (46 cases) in Switzerland, and London in the United Kingdom (52 cases).

[Page14:]

Applicable rules of law

Parties exercised their freedom to choose the applicable rules of law in the great majority of cases registered with ICC in 2002. 79.4% of the contracts in these cases specified a national system as the applicable law. In 2.3% of contracts, the parties chose rules or principles other than national laws for the determination of their dispute, notably equity (1.6% of contracts). In one contract the parties chose the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts. In the remaining 18.3% of contracts, the applicable rules of law were not specified.

The laws of 68 different nations were chosen by parties in the contracts underlying the disputes referred to ICC arbitration in 2002. The laws of England, Switzerland and France were, in that order, the most commonly chosen European laws. In one contract the parties chose European law, without further qualification. The variety of African laws chosen was wider than ever before. The USA state law most commonly chosen continues to be that of New York, well ahead of Texas, the next most frequent choice.

It should be noted that the above analysis is limited to the choices made by the parties in their contracts. It does not take account of the decisions made by arbitral tribunals pursuant to Article 17(1) of the ICC Rules of Arbitration when there is no choice of law in the contract(s) underlying the dispute.[Page15:]

Dates of contracts

The table [below] shows that 65% of the disputes referred to ICC arbitration in 2002 arose from contracts less than five years old and 25% from contracts between five and ten years old. Of course, disputes can and do arise at all times in the life of a contract, even one that has stood the test of time for over thirty years.

Amounts in dispute

The amounts in dispute in the cases filed with the ICC Court in 2002 were as varied as in previous years. The breakdown of cases according to the amounts involved remained relatively stable, although a rise was observed in the number of cases involving amounts under 50,000 US dollars.

Awards

In 2002, the ICC Court approved a total of 359 awards, comprising 115 partial awards, 36 awards by consent and 208 final awards. The rise in the number of partial awards confirms a tendency already noted in the 2000 and 2001 reports. 12 of the final awards and four of the partial awards were given by a majority decision of the three arbitrators comprising the tribunal. Of these 16 majority awards, 15 included dissenting opinions (seven by the co-arbitrator nominated by or on behalf of the claimant(s) and eight by the co-arbitrator nominated by or on behalf of the respondent(s)).

All awards rendered by ICC arbitral tribunals are required to be submitted to the ICC Court for approval. Under the powers vested in it by Article 27 of the ICC Rules of Arbitration, the Court laid down modifications as to form and/or drew attention to points of substance when approving 217 of the awards submitted to it in 2002. In order for the awards in a further 34 cases to be approved, they were referred back to the arbitrators for resubmission at a later date after certain aspects had been reworked. As a general rule, awards are approved by the Court at a plenary or committee session. However, the Chairman of the Court has the power to approve an award alone in exceptional cases of urgency. This happened on one occasion in 2002.

Although the working languages of the ICC Court are English and French, awards may be rendered in the language of the parties' choice. 72% of the awards rendered in 2002 were in English, 16% in French, 6% in Spanish, 3% in German and the remainder in Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Russian.

Correction and interpretation of awards

In 2002, as in 2001, 38 applications were made under Article 29 of the ICC Rules of Arbitration. Two of these cases concerned corrections carried out by the arbitral tribunal on its own initiative (Article 29(1)). The remaining 36 cases concerned applications made by the parties pursuant to Article 29(2): the correction and/or interpretation was requested on 11 occasions by the claimant(s), on 16 occasions by the respondent(s) and on nine occasions by all parties. These requests gave rise to addenda in 19 cases, whereas in the remaining 17 cases the arbitral tribunal decided that no correction or interpretation was necessary.

Pre-arbitral referee procedure

In 2002, two applications were made for urgent provisional measures under ICC's pre-arbitral referee procedure. The parties came from France, the Netherlands, Portugal and Switzerland.

ICC as appointing authority for ad hoc arbitrations

In 2002, ICC received eight requests for it to assist in the constitution of the arbitral tribunal in ad hoc proceedings. Five of these requests concerned arbitrations conducted under the UNCITRAL Rules of Arbitration. The ICC Court is also requested to decide challenges of arbitrators in ad hoc cases, as happened on three occasions in 2002.[Page17:]

ADR

In addition to arbitration, ICC also offers other methods of dispute resolution. These are available under the ICC ADR Rules, launched in July 2001, which are more flexible and wide-ranging than the ICC Rules of Optional Conciliation of 1988, which they replace.

In 2002, ICC received eight requests for ADR under the 2001 rules, and one request for conciliation under the 1988 rules. The ADR requests involved 22 parties from 11 different countries in Europe, North America, Latin America and West Asia. Three of the parties were public or semi-public entities. The requests involved a wide range of economic sectors - construction, finance, telecommunications, leisure and entertainment. The amounts of money at issue were equally wide-ranging: in six of the cases, the sums at issue exceeded one million US dollars.

Expertise

The ICC International Centre for Expertise received five requests under the ICC Rules for Expertise in 2002. All of these requests were for the proposal of one or more experts in a variety of fields ranging from heavy industry to services. The parties involved came from Austria, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom and the experts from Canada, Colombia, France and the United Kingdom. In one case the proposal of an expert was made at the request of an ICC arbitral tribunal.

At the end of 2002, ICC launched new, revised Rules for Expertise, which came into force on 1 January 2003. They replace the previous revision, in force from 1993 to 2002. During those ten years, the ICC International Centre for Expertise received 122 requests involving parties from 56 countries. 96 of the requests were for the proposal and 26 for the appointment of experts. 144 experts of 21 different nationalities were proposed or appointed in these cases. The cases covered a wide variety of matters requiring technical, financial or legal expertise, ranging from the determination of defects in construction projects and industrial processes to the evaluation of fuel prices, company shares, real estate and manufactured goods, and the verification of bank drafts and guarantees.

DOCDEX

In addition to the aforementioned requests, the ICC International Centre for Expertise also received four applications under the ICC Rules for Documentary Instruments Dispute Resolution Expertise. All four requests concerned letters of credit involving amounts ranging from just under 500,000 US dollars to over 20 million US dollars. No requests have so far been made relating to a collection or a demand guarantee, which the 2002 revision brought within the scope of the rules. The twelve independent experts appointed in the four cases registered in 2002 (three experts per case) came from Australia, China, France, Germany, Korea, Malaysia, Chinese Taipei and the United Kingdom. The geographical origins of the parties were equally widespread: Belgium, China, India, Japan, Russia and Switzerland. DOCDEX proceedings take place in writing only: a request is submitted by the initiator in response to which the respondent may file an answer, following which the Centre may ask for supplementary information if necessary. All parties actively participated in three of the four cases registered in 2002. In the remaining case, the respondent chose not to participate. In all cases, the proceedings were accomplished in two months from the submission of the request.