The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the globe and virtually all sectors have had to

adapt to an increasingly contact-free environment. The world of arbitration is

no exception, and in the past weeks we have seen a series of adjustments and

solutions targeted at both safeguarding the health of participants and

preserving the continuity of the process.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the globe and virtually all sectors have had to

adapt to an increasingly contact-free environment. The world of arbitration is

no exception, and in the past weeks we have seen a series of adjustments and

solutions targeted at both safeguarding the health of participants and

preserving the continuity of the process.

As a natural reaction, medium and large scale events were postponed (but

importantly, not cancelled), such as the ICCA 2020 Congress in Edinburgh, the

Fourteenth Annual Investment Treaty Arbitration Conference in Washington DC

organised by Juris, or the LCIA Asia Pacific and European Users’

Councils’ Symposium in Instanbul, to name a few.

Arbitral institutions around Europe have remained operational, and have promptly

transitioned to administering the arbitral proceedings remotely. The ICC, VIAC,

SCC, as well as the Court of International Commercial Arbitration attached to

the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Romania (CICA-CCIR), are encouraging

the parties, arbitral tribunals and other neutrals conduct all communications

by email and to hold meetings online.

In these times, the institutions with digitalized case management systems are

particularly well-placed to tackle the impending changes. The SCC has recently

introduced its SCC Platform for communication and file sharing in September

2019, and was (at least until now) in the process of a „world tour” for

promoting the digitalization within arbitration. The ICC was one of the

pioneers of such a system, unveiling the NetCase platform as early as 2005.

Unfortunately, due to insufficient interest form parties and arbitral

tribunals, the system did not see much use.

However, times are changing and we expect to see a revival and modernisation of NetCase

in due course, as well as a step up from other arbitral institutions in this

direction.

The arbitration hearings scheduled for this period were probably the most affected

by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of them were re-scheduled, relocated or

cancelled until further notice, in the advent of travel restrictions and the

participants being unwilling or unable to physically engage in the

process.

In reaction to these concerns, Delos Dispute Resolution has prepared a

particularly useful Checklist on holding arbitration and mediation hearings in

time of COVID-19. The parties and arbitral tribunals are encouraged to discuss

the questions raised in the checklist in a pre-hearing conference call. More

information and the content of the checklist may be found at the link

below. https://delosdr.org/index.php/2020/03/12/checklist-on-holding-hearings-in-times-of-covid-19/

It is now too early to predict how the COVID-19 situation will unfold, and to what  extent it will affect the arbitration world. Nonetheless, we anticipate a surge of disputes from the ongoing projects which will be affected by the pandemic, as well as from the likely impending economic crisis, especially in sectors such as construction, energy, transportation and infrastructure.  The arbitration practitioners around the world will adapt, the institutions will

innovate, and the proceedings will be conducted. We trust that the present

experience will end up being a great opportunity that will embolden the

arbitration community to embrace a more modern way of doing arbitration, more efficiently and less costly.

By Raluca Petrescu and Alexandru Stan