Warsaw at Solidarity Arbitration and Mediation Days. Insights

Busy and productive days were spent last week in Warsaw at Solidarity Arbitration and Mediation Days (December 6-7, 2023).

We all understand and feel that attention to the war in Ukraine lately has decreased significantly, especially against the background of the war between Israel and Gaza.

However, the war in our country continues, and Ukraine needs support at various levels and directions.

The Solidarity Arbitration and Mediation Days arbitration conference, jointly organized by the
Sąd Arbitrażowy przy Krajowej Izbie Gospodarczej w Warszawie/Court of Arbitration at the PCC and International Commercial Arbitration Court – ICAC at the the Ukrainian CCI, drew attention to the issues of impact of the russia’s war against Ukraine on the state of functioning of arbitration institutions in the world and changes in the arbitration practice, which were provoked by it.

Unexpected were the figures, which show a general trend over the past two years of a decrease in the number of cases of most of the main arbitral institutions (in the ICC from 946 cases in 2020 to 710 cases in 2022; in the SCC 213 cases in 2020 to 143 in 2022; in the LCIA from 440 cases in 2020 to 293 cases in 2022). At the same time, it is indicative that the number of cases considered by the ICAC at the ICC of Ukraine increased during 2022-2023 compared to the pre-war period (in 2021 – 298 cases; in 2022 – 372 cases; in 2023 – 562 cases).

The arbitration community noted changes in the “geography” of the submission of disputes to arbitration institutions under the influence of war and sanctions – the disputes moved from Europe to Asian countries. In addition, further escalation of disputes, both commercial and investment, with Russian participants and Russia as a state is expected.

In addition to the above, a lot of attention was paid during the conference to the application of new procedural tools in arbitration and mediation, which, although seem to have no final legal result, can be economically expedient for business, as they allow not to stop execution of projects, to preserve confidentiality and reduce significant arbitration costs.

We are grateful to the organizers for the brilliant conference!

Yuliya Atamanova, Patrner at LCF Law Group, for lcf.ua