As of October 6th 2021, 89% of New South Wales residents and 83% of Victorian residents have had their first COVID-19 vaccination.[1] With two of Australia’s most populous states scheduled to exit lockdown by December, face-to-face Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) sessions will once again be an option for many Australians. The question for practitioners is whether clients will return to traditional ADR post-lockdown, or is Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) here to stay? Our special rapporteur on the impact of COVID-19 explores [...]

The Hon. Justice Julie Ward 4th Annual ADR Address of the Supreme Court of NSW Rapporteur - Aaron Zou The Hon. Justice Julie Ward, Chief Judge of Equity in the Supreme Court of New South Wales, presented ADC’s 4th Annual ADR address of the Supreme Court of NSW last Thursday, 30th September. Having spent the majority of the year in lockdown and in virtual hearings, Justice Ward’s annual address was topically on the future of Online Dispute Resolution [...]

With opening itself to globalisation and foreign investment, India is eying to become a global hub for commerce. Arbitration, as a quasi-judicial system, is increasingly be used in responding to the concomitant commercial disputes that arise from this increased trade and investment. In this fascinating article Rajat Singla, an India-based engineer and Masters of Law candidate at UNSW, interviews users and experts of arbitration. The focus is on professionals from the Indian civil infrastructure industry who have experience in dealing [...]

Following submissions made by the Australian Disputes Centre in conjunction with members of the Council for Australian Dispute Resolution (CADR) to the Federal Attorney-General earlier this year in support of the signing of the United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation (‘Singapore Convention on Mediation’), Australia has become the latest country to sign the Singapore Convention on Mediation. On 10 September 2021, Australia joined a list of 52 countries who have so far signed the Convention.[1] Afghanistan [...]

How the Upstream Oil and Gas Industry can leverage interdisciplinary research to more effectively engage with Indigenous communities Deborah Lockhart and Jessica Xu Since 2010, mining companies have requested permission for the destruction of over 463 Aboriginal heritage sites. Recent high-profile events have profoundly impacted culturally significant Indigenous sites, and mining companies are under intense pressure to demonstrate greater sensitivity in their relationships with stakeholders. In this paper presented to the APPEA Conference in Perth on 17 June 2021, [...]

Jiabin Yu Effective 1 July 2021, the updated World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Expert Determination Rules came into force. What can users expect in WIPO-administrated expert determination proceedings? We look at the changes and offer a comparison with the ICC and LCIA Rules. Read about the changes here » Jiabin Yu Jiabin Yu holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Western Australia, and is currently pursuing his Juris Doctor at the Australian National University. [...]

Larissa Welmans & Dr Sam Luttrell, Clifford Chance The Federal Court has recently issued a warning to all Arbitration Claimants to provide proper notice or run the risk of having an unenforceable award. The Court in Jishi Fund held that as one of the parties did not receive ‘proper notice of either the arbitration or the appointment of arbitrators’, the award should not be enforced under ‘public policy’ grounds of the International Arbitration Act 1974 (Cth). This shows an [...]

The NSW Supreme Court clarified the role of experts appointed under expert determination clauses in Lainson Holdings Pty Ltd v Duffy Kennedy Pty Ltd (‘Lainson Holdings’).[1] The decision confirms that experts are not required to determine disputes ‘free of legal error’ in order for the decision to be binding, even where the contract required the determination to be ‘according to law’. The Facts Lainson Holdings Pty Ltd (‘Lainson’) and Duffy Kennedy Pty Ltd (‘Duffy’) entered into a building contract [...]

In an exciting all-woman final at the 16th ICC International Commercial Mediation Competition, New Zealand’s University of Auckland emerged victorious against Bulgaria’s University of Sofia. The University of New South Wales closely followed in third place. The National University of Singapore, the winner of 2020 APCMC, was also awarded ‘Best Team Work between Counsel and Client’.  48 university teams were selected to compete in 100 mock mediation sessions from 5 to 11 February 2021 in this globally-renowned competition. [...]

ADC and ICC extend a warm invitation to University students to compete in the 5th Annual ADC-ICC Asia Pacific Commercial Mediation Competition (APCMC) which will be held online from 10 -12 September 2021. The winning team of this competition recieves a reserved spot to compete in the 17th Annual ICC Mediation Competition in Paris, 2022. This is the world’s largest moot exclusively devoted to international commercial mediation. Most recently, we were thrilled to see our winner of APCMC 2019, [...]