EA30

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                      *       EUROPEAN        *
                      *      ARBITRATION      *
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                      *       issue  30.      *
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                                                         August 21st, 1998.

                                                 Publisher Michael Chapman.
                                                  mchapman@zen.dedal.fr.net
 

1. Talking Point.
2. Diary of Events.
3. Directory.
4. News items.
 
 

1.  TALKING POINT.

                 &bsp;       Wet Summer ?
   There are no threats, only 'opportunities'   ... so they say.
   The East is certainly an opportunity for arbitration, but two stories currently circulating indicate that dusk may be darker on the eastern than the western horizon.
   One story, now no longer new, only concerns Europe as the place of arbitration. The contract involving a non-European party had a clause. The clause was not pathological. The clause designated the appointing body, for what would be an unsupervised arbitration. The body was approached with a request that its president make an appointment. Shortly thereafter, or so the story goes, the president was approached again. This time, with a suggestion that if he did appoint he would be made into a body. A dead body that is, in colloquial English 'a wet job'.
   Such talk is, in some circles, loosely made. Regrettable as it is that such areas may be numerous, it is fortuitous that the circles within which the actions are as loosely undertaken as the threats made are far fewer. It is understood that a robust position was taken and no detrimental effects suffered.
   The other story is more recent, and less specific, but it came as a general warning from a practitioner: In eastern Europe some parties have not been backward in advising backward in advising arbitrators as to how in the party's submission the arbitrator should decide, nor backward in indicating how the party will decide about the arbitrator's future if he were to 'get it wrong'. 'Functus' could take on new connotations(?).
   None of this is new to the World. The author used to accept the probability of being assaulted in the lobby of the criminal court as 'all part of a day's work' for an expert witness. Indeed he was so naive about how others viewed the rough and tumble, that he was shocked the first time he saw an advocate attempt to avoid an interview with his _own_ client (in custody at the time). Indeed this would probably all be better as the stuff for after dinner recollections (with some more florid embellishments) were it not that the source of the second story indicated that he no longer accepted appointments involving 'those' countries.
   For better or worse, there is no regulatory body for arbitrators. Probably for the better as far as guarding their independence (and _perceived_ independence) is concerned. Possibly for the worse as regards the ability to act with some political coherence against threats to the profession.
   As it is each must act as best they can, when faced with non-orthodox tactics by parties. Hopefully, though, the odd reminiscence serves to forewarn all, without detracting from the prestige of a syste prestige of a system that can surely claim to have 'no more' problems than state tribunals.
                                                                      EA

                      ++++++++++++++++++++++

2. DIARY OF EVENTS:

 All contributions to this DIARY are welcome. It is both for the individual arbitrator and for those who plan meetings.
 Generally, listed meetings will be at least half-day and usually full day events. Evening meetings are likely to be only of local interest.
 The emphasis is European: However to help in scheduling, major world events are listed.

                PLEASE see important note below,
                 before using any of this info.

1998:
-----

Sept. 6-11&n

Sept. 6-11   CEDR. 'Mediator Skills Training'.
             Vevey, Switzerland.   fax: 00+44-171481.4442.

Sept. 12-13  LCIA North American Council Symposium, Whistler, Vancouver.
Sept. 13-18  IBA Biennial Conference, Vancouver.

Sept. 17-25  'The International Community and its Role in Preventing,
             Managing and Resolving Conflict.'  Cambridge. 21st
             Century Trust  trust@tfct.demon.co.uk

Sept. 23-24  ICC 'Geneva Business Dialogue'.
Sept. 24-25  Colloque 75e Anniversaire. International Court of Arbitration
             of the ICC. Geneva.

Sept. 24-25  American Bar Association, Dispute Resolution Section.
             'Arbitration: Preparing for the 21st Century.'  New York.

Sept. 25     Opening of the new building of the T.M.C. Asser Instituut
             by MR W.J. Deetman, Mayor of The Hague.

he Hague.

Oct. 8-11    AAA 'First National Neutrals' Retreat.'  Orlando, Florida.

Oct. 12-16   IWBL 'Negotiating, Drafting and Executing International
             Contracts: Study of a Mock Case.'   Paris.

Oct. 15-17   SPIDR Annual Int'l Conference. Portland, Oregon, USA.

Oct. 17      LCIA Pan-African Council. Harare, Zimbabwe. Jointly with:
             Commercial Arbitration Centre, Harare & Zimbabwe Arb.Assoc.

Oct. 20-22   Three day arbitration conference.
             Central European University, Budapest.
Oct. 23-25   European Branch CIArb, Biannual Meeting.   Budapest.
             Contact Eugen Salpius   salpius@alpin.or.at

Oct. 23      Conflict Studies: The New Generation of Ideas. Second Annual
             Graduate Student Conference on Dispute Resolution and Related
          &nbp;      Topics.  Boston, USA. Send postal address to
             disres@umbsky.cc.umb.edu

Oct. 29      Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the Institute of World Business
             Law. 'Forging trust in electronic commerce: law and dispute
             resolution.'  Hotel Prince de Galles Paris.
Oct. 30      Fifteenth Annual Joint AAA/ICC/ICSID Colloquium. '  Hotel
             Prince de Galles Paris. Details : ICC.

Nov. 12      Fourth Young Arbitration Practitioners' Symposium.
             Dusseldorf.  Contact Irene Bates, LCIA, .
Nov. 13      Second IBA International Arbitration Day. Dusseldorf, Germany.
             IBA, ICC, LCIA & DIS.  Long-term construction and infra-
             structure projects.     nbsp;     Contact IBA  (confs@int-bar.org).
Nov. 14      Traditional-style LCIA symposium, Dusseldorf.

Nov. 26-27   IWBL, International Arbitration Practice Workshop.  Paris.

Dec. 2-3     Geneva Global Arbitration Forum.  wernerp@iprolink.ch

Dec. 7-11    PIDA XXXIV. Study based on a mock arbitration under the
             1988 ICC Rules. Paris. conf@iccwbo.org
 

1999:
-----
Feb. 17-20   CIArb, Conference.  Cancun, Mexico.

Mar.  1-5    XIIIth Meeting. International Congress of Maritime
             Arbitrators.  Auckland.
             fax Convention Management Services on: +64-9.360.1980

May 17       Conference of the [state] members of the Permanent
             Court of Arbitration, The Hague.

May 18-19    THIRD HAGUE (Governmental) CONFERENCE, celebrating the
         &np;        Centenary of the First Conference.

'summer'     Celebration of the 1899 First Hague Conference, to be
             held in St. Petersburg.

Nov. 17-18   CIArb, Millennium Conference. QEII Conference Centre, London.
 

2000:
-----
July 7-9     A.B.A. Annual Meeting, New York. (see also July 18-20).
July 14-16   ABA, Dispute Resolution Section, meeting, London.
             See ABA-DRS below for contact details.
July 18-20   A.B.A. Annual Meeting (continued, see also July 7-9), London.
 
 

Please CONFIRM all details directly with organisers, the above material is drawn from various sources and should not be relied on by itself(!).
 

contact details for frequently  cited organisations:
---------------
ABA     American Bar Association.  tel +1-312-988-5000. For www see
        Directory, below.     but NOTE the Section on Dispute Resolution's
        contact is based inbsp;  contact is based in Chicago:
ABA-SDR American Bar Association, Section on Dispute Resolution.
        telephone:  +1-202-662-1680
LCIA   (London)  t: 00441-719.363.530, f: 00441-719.363.533
SGICC  Study Group for Int'l Commercial Contracts.
       (London)  t: 00441-817-857-050  f: 00441-817-857-649

                      +++++++++++++++++++++
 

3.  DIRECTORY:
The next 'full' Directory appears in EA32 (and the last was in EA29). This edition's contains contact details for bodies mentioned in the Diary, new entrants, amended entries, etc.

The Alternative Newsletter
         E-mail:    Mistofoles@aol.com
             or:    TAN@mediate.com
        website:   http://www.mediate.com

American Arbitration Association
         Homepage:  http://www.adr.org

American Bar Association  (ABA)
  &nbs
         E-mail     abamtgs@abanet.org   info@abanet.org
         website    http://www.abanet.org

American Bar Association - Dispute Resolution Section
         E-mail:    dispute@abanet.org
         website:   http://www.abanet.org/dispute/home.htm

CIArb:   Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (London)
         E-mail:    71411.2735@compuserve.com
         Homepage:  http://www.arbitrators.org

CIArb East Anglia Branch:
         Homepage:  http://www.morris-associates.co.uk/ciarb/ciarbea.htm

European Arbitration:
         E-mail:    mchapman@zen.dedal.fr.net
         Homepage:  http://www.france-explorer.com/perso/interarb

IBA:     International Bar Association
         E-mail:    confs@int-bar.org

ICC:     International Chamber of Commerce (Paris)
         E-mail:    conf@iccwbo.org
         Homepage:  http://www.iccwbo.org/arb/index.htm
              and:  http://www.iccwbo.org/conferences/home-confer.htm

ICC-Asia:  ICC Regional Office for Asia (Hong Kong)
         E-mail:    iccasiaoffice@compuserve.com

Institute of World Business Law, see ICC (Paris).

Kluwer Law International 'Arbitration Site'
         Homepage:  http://www.epms.nl/arbit

LCIA:    Homepage:  http://www.lcia-arbitration.com

Milan Chamber of Arbitration
         Homepage:  http://www.mi.camcom.it/eng/arbitration.chamber

PIDA  (Programme de l'Institut de Dix Ans) of the ICC, Paris.
         E-mail:    conf@iccwbo.org
         Homepage:  http://www.iccwbo.org

SPIDR    E-mail: sp;  E-mail:    spidr@igc.apc.org
         Homepage:  http://www.spidr.org

WIPO     E-mail:    arbiter.mail@wipo.int
         Homepage:  http://www.arbiter.wipo.int
              and:  http://www.arbiter.wipo.int/textonly/index.html
 
 
 

                      +++++++++++++++++++++

4.  NEWS ITEMS

Should 'deciders' be lawyers:
-----------------------------
Chris Currie discuses 'Should a Mediator also be an Attorney?' at http://www.mediate.com/articles/currie.cfml
It is worthy of note that in many of the United States of America it is apparently necessary to hold a law degree to be listed as a _court approved_ mediator.
The assertion that 'all' French arbitrators are lawyers was laid to rest by a doctoral thesis sometime ago (Sophie CREPIN, 1995, "Les sentences arbitrales devant ...", Paris, ISBN 2.275.00327-4). Of the two-thirds of (appealed) awards where Dr Crepin could identify the profession of tribunal members then 30% were 'jurists' and 70% technic'jurists' and 70% technically qualified. (A more detailed summary -in English- occurs in footnote 2 at  63 JCIArb 2, 141-142 (1997)).

and ... does legal professional privilege extend to arbitration
---------------------------------------------------------------
The answer apparently for 'attorney-client privilege' in the United States is not always clear, and is reviewed by James Carter at
http://www.adr.org/currents/attorney-client_priv_and_arbitration.html
(The question of the confidentiality of documents produced during hearing was considered by the English Court of Appeal, last year, in Ali Shipping Corp. v. Shipyard Trogir (19dec97). The court ruled generally in support of the implied confidentiality of arbitration being recognised as a matter of the law of England.)
 

European Branch meeting (Budapest) October 23-25:
-------------------------------------------------
This will be held at the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce. It is preceded by a seminar for professors from countries with economies in transition, to be held at the Central European University. The approximately twenty-five attendees at the seminar will stay on for the Branch meeting.
The meeting is based around a mock arbitration 'The Fission Chips' case.
Contact details in the Diary (above).

Second IBA International Arbi IBA International Arbitration Day:
-----------------------------------------
'Dispute Resolution in International Long-term Construction and Infrastructure Projects' (Dusseldorf, November 12-13).
Four half-day sessions :
  Practical Problems in Resolving Disputes in an International Construction and Infrastructure Project.
  ADR, Dispute Review Boards and Similar Mechanisms for Dispute Resolution during the Performance of International Long-term Contracts.
  Problems of Dispute Resolution in Multi-party Projects.
  Choice of Substantive Law in International Long-term Contracts.
(This one-day meeting (the four sessions are all on the 13th) is preceded by the half-day Fourth Young Arbitration Practitioners' Symposium (of the LCIA) and followed by an LCIA Symposium. See Diary above.).

Publications:
-------------
The recalcitrant arbitrator (and how to deal with him) are discussed
     in an article by Emmanuel Gaillard at
     http://www.ljx.com/practice/arbitration/0604intarb.html
'International Arbitration in France' is a 44 page booklet published
     by the Comite Francais de l'Arbitrage (fax 00 33 1.42.66.33.33).
         Besides explaining the background to arbitration in France (the
     cultural background as well as some twenty-odd pages on the law) the
     booklet contains much practical information. There is a list of
     French arbitration organisations. Such a list is something of a
     novelty for the reviewer. Most arbitral institutions, like
     religious bodies in former times, seem to view themselves as the
     sole body, and that it would be an anathema to them to give details
     of any other body (or at least any other body within two hundred
     kilometres of them ... a 'cooperation agreement', preferably with
     an institution in another continent, can always be heralded as
     demonstrating true international values !).
     There is also, and this is again something close to the reviewer's
     heart,  lists of hearing rooms, of business centres, of hotels, of
     interpreters, of translators and of typists. I had, in my youth, been
    >     tempted once to try and produce a guide to arbitral centres of the
     world, giving such details for each. It is a changing landscape to
     keep up with though. That the French have produced such down-to-earth
     information is though commendable.
     The booklet ends with a Bibliography.
     An excellent and practical guide ... and apparently free of charge.
The Journal of World Intellectual Property ( werner@iprolink.ch ),
     flourishing though still in its first volume, is distributing sample
     copies to IP professionals. As the editor (Jacques Werner) notes in
     a recent letter the main industrialised countries exert great efforts
     to ensure that the IP rights of their export industries are protected
     and enforced. Yet many countries that might not have done so are
     constrained to enact IP legislation so as to not lose their benefits
     under the WTO Agreement. IP " questions can today become burning
     trade and even political issues ".
     The next issue will be volume 1 number 5.

The American Arbitration Association and the Internet:
------------------------------------------------------
A review of the AAA's increasing use of the Internet is published on http://www.adr.org/drt/cyberspace_article.html by Cindy Fazzi.
Though, some of the material (the Virtual Magistrate Project) cited does not seem that recent.
 

NOT the NYC (New York Convention):
----------------------------------
Does anyone among our readers have any experience of the GENEVA CONVENTION of 1927 (the Convention on the Execution of Foreign Arbitral Awards), or the Protocol of 1923 (on Arbitration Clauses)?
The Dervaird Committee (on Scottish arbitral law reform) did, I know, ask if anyone had experience of these, when it was considering how to deal with the residue of the Arbitration Act 1950 that applies to Scotland.
Fouchard, Gaillard & Goldman give a list of states who are parties to these agreements, but not party to the NYC. These (12 for the Protocol and 8 for the Convention) include several whose adhesion is due to them having being dependencies of parties to the original agreements in the 1920's. There seems to be no equivalent list of states that are parties both to these agreements _and_ the NYC.
(the NYC.
(I also suspect that at least one country (possibly Malta?) has entered a denunciation and thus though often listed is no longer a party to either agreement(?).)
As the Geneva Convention applies only to and award " made in a territory of one of the High Contracting Parties to which the present Convention applies and between persons who are subject to the jurisdiction of one of the High Contracting Parties ", then such a list becomes of some importance if the Convention is to be used with regard to parties in one of the eight remaining Geneva-but-not-NYC states and in another state (let alone also with regard to the seat of the arbitration). If anyone knows of a full current list (basically an extrapolation of the signatories of the 1920's to states that were then their dependencies) EA would be interested in publishing it.
Likewise if anyone knows of any case law relating to the Protocol or the Convention, this would be of interest.
    The Rouen Court's 1984 ruling on the 1956 Swiss award in Ripert
    v. Panchaud, is the only citation in FG&G.
 

                      +++++++++++++++++++++
COPY DATE for EA31 is: September 3rd.
         &sp;                +++++++++++++++++++++

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END OF THIS ISSUE.