ICC Court announces new policies to foster transparency and ensure greater efficiency

Both decisions were unanimously adopted at the Bureau of the Court at its session of 17 December 2015 and announced at the Court’s Plenary session on the same day.

The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) International Court of Arbitration ^® has today announced two major decisions aimed at enhancing the efficiency and transparency of ICC arbitration proceedings. Both decisions were unanimously adopted at the Bureau of the Court at its session of 17 December 2015 and announced at the Court’s Plenary session on the same day.

Promoting transparency for users and other stakeholders

The Court will from now on publish on its website the names of the arbitrators sitting in ICC cases, their nationality, as well as whether the appointment was made by the Court or by the parties and which arbitrator is the tribunal chairperson. This new policy will apply to all cases registered as from January 1 2016.

This information will be published once the tribunal is constituted and updated in case of changes in the tribunal’s composition-without however mentioning the reason for the change. This information will remain on the website once the case is terminated. In order not to compromise expectations of confidentiality that may be important to the parties, the case reference number and the names of the parties and of counsel will not be published.

Parties will, by mutual agreement, have the option of opting out of this limited disclosure. They may also request the Court to publish additional information about a particular case.

The information published will show the quality of our tribunals and will provide an additional incentive to promote regional, generational and gender diversity in the appointment of arbitrators.

Cost consequences for unjustified delays in submitting awards

In a further groundbreaking move, the Court has set out clear information as to the costs consequences that derive from unjustified delays in submitting draft arbitration awards to the Court.

In a note that is released today, the Court states that ICC arbitral tribunals are expected to submit draft awards within three months after the last substantive hearing concerning matters to be decided in an award or, if later, the filing of the last written submissions (excluding cost submissions). This timeframe will be set at two months for cases heard by sole arbitrators.

If a draft award is submitted beyond that timeframe, the Court-unless satisfied that the delay is justified by factors beyond the arbitrators’ control or to exceptional circumstances-may lower the arbitrators’ fees as follows:

• for draft awards submitted for scrutiny up to seven months after the last substantive hearing or written submissions, whichever is later, the fees that the Court would otherwise have considered fixing are reduced by 5 to 10%.
• for draft awards submitted up to 10 months after the last substantive hearing or written submissions, the fees that the Court would otherwise have considered fixing are reduced by 10 to 20%.
• for draft awards submitted for scrutiny more than 10 months after the last substantive hearing or written submissions, the fees that the Court would otherwise have considered fixing are reduced by 20% or more.

The expeditious resolution of disputes is one of our top priorities.

In deciding on such reductions, the Court will take into account any delays incurred in the submission of one or more partial awards. As a further measure to encourage efficiency, the new policy provides the Court with the possibility to increase the arbitrators’ fees above the amount that it would otherwise have considered fixing in cases where a tribunal has conducted the arbitration expeditiously.

Mr Mourre said: “Users are concerned by the time and costs of international arbitrations, and rightly so. The expeditious resolution of disputes is one of our top priorities. The immense majority of our awards are timely made, yet there is still a minority of cases in which we see delays that are not acceptable to our users.

“By releasing this new note, we send a clear signal to tribunals that unjustified delays will not be tolerated, and we provide transparency on the consequences that the Court will draw from such situations.”

Follow ICC on Twitter @iccwbo.