What’s in store for London’s Commercial Court?

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 MARKET VIEW – LITIGATION 

White & Case’s head of litigation, John Reynolds, looks at what impact the development of other countries’ specialist commercial courts will have on the future of London as a centre for international dispute resolution

Despite relentless competition, most notably from New York, the choice of English governing law dominates the international contracts market. So says a recent article from the July/August issue of Legal Business with the benefit of opinion from partners at a number of large international firms (including White & Case’s own David Goldberg).

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Conditional Fees – who wins?

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 MARKET VIEW – LITIGATION 

Ian Gray, Litigation head at Eversheds, looks back on the firm’s experience of alternative fee arrangements in commercial disputes, explains the lessons learned, and looks ahead to the future of dispute funding

One-off conditional fees

I remember being told around 1998, just prior to the introduction of conditional fees, that the general counsel of one large client was fed up that litigation lawyers did not have any ‘skin in the game’ and that, as a result, they ran cases too far, without a care for the costs. In the years that followed, we did a series of small and large conditional-fee cases. In truth, we had some tough experiences along the way, at times losing more than just some skin.

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Financial mis-selling in Ireland and the importance of knowing the consumer

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 MARKET VIEW – LITIGATION 

John O’Riordan of Dillon Eustace explains what advisers should bear in mind

There has been a significant increase in recent years in the number of claims relating to the alleged mis-selling of financial products to consumers in Ireland. These claims have been varied in their nature but essentially they have a common theme, the sale of an unsuitable financial product to a customer, on the basis of incorrect and/or misleading advice.

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A better Judiciary to realise Turkey’s potential

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 MARKET VIEW – LITIGATION 

Mehmet Gün, senior partner at Gün + Partners, examines the difficulties facing the Turkish judiciary and how essential a first-class justice system is to Turkey’s progress

In the 1980s, Turkey undertook significant liberalisation of its national economy. Since then, liberalisation has increasingly become a pivotal part of the international economy. Between the 1980s and 2000, Turkey learnt some very important lessons in the form of economic crises and was saved by International Monetary Fund programmes.

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Jackson – Light at the end of the tunnel?

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 MARKET VIEW – LITIGATION 

Enyo Law’s Peter Fitzpatrick, Annabel Thomas and Lauren Gash analyse how the Jackson reforms are bedding down a year after they came into force

Over a year has passed since the Jackson reforms came into force in April 2013 under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act. Like the Woolf reforms before them, the aim of the reforms was to cut the cost of civil litigation and streamline cases, reducing the use of court time and encouraging early settlement.

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The Disputes Dilemma

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 MARKET VIEW – INTRODUCTION 

Quinn Emanuel’s Ted Greeno weighs up the pros and cons of the different dispute resolution options and offers his insight into which option to pursue

It’s an old chestnut: which is better, litigation or arbitration? This is the third attempt I have had at it. In the first, I wrote an article singing the praises of arbitration over litigation. In the second, I debated for the motion: ‘This house considers that litigation is better than arbitration’, at a Commercial Litigators Forum event. On that occasion, my opponent (now partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan), Stephen Jagusch, used the entirety of his allotted time to quote my article back at me. So I approach this question with caution.

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The agony of choice

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 MARKET VIEW – LITIGATION 

Bär & Karrer partners Daniel Hochstrasser and Nadja Jaisli Kull discuss the dos and don’ts to be considered when appointing arbitrators

For all of its emphasis on privacy, procedural flexibility and the reassurance that comes with a widely-adopted enforcement regime in the form of the New York Convention, parties remain attracted to international arbitration for a sometimes-overlooked, but equally important, factor: the ability to select their own decision-makers. In some ways, however, being spoilt for choice can make picking one’s candidate that much more difficult. Do you go for the expensive ‘name’ arbitrator? The Big Law associate tipped for great things but with comparatively few appointments to their name? Or, for counsel and arbitrators of a certain generation, the most unthinkable move of all – a woman?

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Better late than never

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 MARKET VIEW – LITIGATION 

The Honourable Marc Lalonde on Canada’s accession to the ICSID Convention and why it took so long to ratify

Since the end of World War II, Canada has played a role in international affairs well above its relative economic or military power, whether at the United Nations or in other international institutions such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO) or the G5 (then G7, G10 and G20). It has also pursued the advancement of its economic interests through the signing of some 30 bilateral investment protection treaties (BITs or Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements (FIPAs) as they are called in Canada) as well as the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1994 (NAFTA). And although it may take a few more years before it is ratified, a preliminary agreement has also been reached recently with the European Union on the text of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), well ahead of the US, which is just starting such negotiations. It is also actively participating in the current Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Negotiations.

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International relations

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 MARKET VIEW – LITIGATION 

Omni Bridgeway’s Wieger Wielinga gives an overview of the Enforcement of Arbitration Awards against Sovereign entities in Practice

The last decade has shown a sharp increase in investment treaty-based and other international arbitration against sovereign nations, parastatals and other semi-sovereign entities. In the slipstream came an increase in the number of cases in which such sovereigns resisted complying with judgments and arbitration awards, including awards from the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Winning an arbitration award against a sovereign does not necessarily mean that recovery will be successful.

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Growing the Litigation Funding Market

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 MARKET VIEW – LITIGATION 

Simon Dluzniak of Bentham IMF discusses Europe’s litigation funding market and compares it with the more mature Australian market the funder has come from

The third-party litigation funding market in this jurisdiction is, relative to Australia, still in its infancy. Hence it is incumbent upon the various stakeholders within the industry to continue to create awareness of the benefits of litigation funding in assisting and shaping its growth. After what appears to have been a fairly positive start, third-party funding (TPF) appears to have suffered a backlash of sorts as a result of a spate of so-called ‘setbacks’, most notably the loss of high-profile funded cases (for example, the Excalibur case) and the collapse of a well-known funder (Argentum).

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